Oh, so sadly true! Found this quote somewhere and live by it!

"No vacation is complete without visiting at least one garden.
A dead plant means an opportunity to replace it with something new.
You hang out with people who converse in Latin outside of church.
The nicest thing about December 21 is that winter sowing begins..
You frequently risk a broken axle, strained back, or perhaps incarceration to take home an irresistable rock/boulder you find at the side of the road or at construction sites.
When it rains too hard to work outdoors, you read a garden book.
When you and your plants are thirsty, THEY get a drink first.
You have more than ten species or cultivars of any one genus, and you want more.
You spend more money on your garden than on clothes.
When shopping for a house, you look at the land before the kitchen.
You have the urge to water those wilting, neglected plants in the supermarket.
For at least six months a year, a manicure would be a complete waste of money.
You take great pride in your compost pile. You even show it off to visitors.
You start gardening in the rights of way in front of, behind, or to the sides of the property you own."

Good one, but it's missing, "You harvest seeds outside restaurants, the grocery store & the post office, along the side roads on the way to/from work, from neighbors' plants as well as from your own garden."

I'm half way remembering one from Agatha Christie's Nemesis, I think ...
"After all, a weed is just a plant in a place you don't want it to be."
In reference to Lunaria (Honesty)in an area that's over-run by it.

oh, my, i am guilty of all of those things! i have knocked on strangers' doors to asking about plants in their yards if there aren't any visible seeds to snatch. half the time i walk about with cutting from a very proud gardener LOL

this is one of my favorites, by henry david thoreau

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed, -- a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Though an old man I am but a young gardener - Thomas Jefferson

Why teach kids about miracles when you can have them plant a garden? - Robert Brault

These are too great not to share with folks who haven't read them.

Bump

guess I fit in with Thomas Jefferson's saying!!
Tom

Bump again,
Great idea Gardenweed,
I have done all those things.
I'm going to copy all of these down.

Also a gardener will work just to take trades in plants.
And a gardener might say, your best knowledge comes from the experience of other gardeners rather than in a book.

My quote: A gardener's work is never done and who wants it to be? LOL

How about being proud of the calouses on your hands. and dirt under your finger nails is just par for the course, at least for the whole day.

You know you've got the obsession when you're out there in the yard everyday and your neighbors are used to seeing you dirty.

Or when you just have to go next door and pull the neighbor's weeds.

A gardener never stops working until she/he takes off their shoes and hops in the tub, then its nighty night.

When you can't wait to get up in the morning, and in summer you up with the birds.

You know your avocation has become an obsession when the neighbors think nothing of it when you pull out your strobe light and work into the wee hrs of the morning.

Or, if Fall is approaching and you've got to get that mum in the ground and its pouring rain outside, well you say it has to get done.

And its so hard to stop, you have to get that certain amount doen that you set out to do and if not you keep working until its done, like get all the mums in.

Or when you can't believe it when you see tons and tons of mums and ornamental trees in the dumpster behind K-Mart and your carrying home as many as can fit in the car, even if they look half dead you'll bring them back to life.

OKay one more, when a few termites whould never scare you away. A neighbor moved into the house across the street, to which the previous owner had the most gorgeous display of bulbs from Huge Tree Lilies, Gladiolous, Daffodils, tulips and just tons and tons of Lilies. The new owner says they are tearing everything down because there are termites in the railroad tiles, and that you can have anything you want just dig them up. You know your obsessed when you turn every square inch of the soil and save even the bulbettes.

Here's a thought, when I meet someone and they are a gardener we become fast friends.

Just asking who else pulls out the lights at night to garden after the sun goes down, anyone else?

Micki