Quotes from Montagu Don

I have always thought of urban gardens - most gardens - as islands, where we create our own kingdoms, acting out our need for land, nurture and nature. On this weekend all these tiny islands wake again, each one crammed with insects, birdsong (often far better in town than country) and slow-moving people emerging into this gift of extra light.

You need nature more than she needs you. It is not an equal relationship. Serve her well and she will look after you. Abuse her and everyone loses.

Failure teaches much more than success.

It is snowing. The flakes stream into the torchlight like a crowd flowing across a bridge, each one unknowably different, all exactly the same. But look up and the snow piles out of the dark like a weightless waterfall, tumbling from a black nowhere to your face. Snow at night is like the roof falling in, quietly.