Audrey Hepburn said this. Yes, the famous celebrated actress of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady. She was an avid gardener. She also promoted the spectacular beauty of gardens around the world in the documentary, Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn. I admire anyone who regularly has to wash soil from under their fingernails. It’s a good sign of a kindred spirit.
I too love to garden. It’s contemplative, rejuvenating and an invigorating outdoor workout. I also love visiting gardens, either my neighbor’s or something farther afield. There are so many types to experience — vegetable, rock, Japanese, flower, English, butterfly, herb, botanical, tropical, desert — each with a distinct focus.
Recently, I meandered through the Filoli Historic House and World-class Garden located in California’s San Francisco Bay area. The visit made me want to redesign my own garden … if I only had the same budget!
The 654-acre Filoli country estate is hugely beautiful. Equally as impressive is its name. William Bowers Bourn, the original owner, had as a credo: “Fight for a just cause. Love your fellow man. Live a good life,” and from those words comes the name FiLoLi. By all historical accounts, Mr. Bourn did live a good life
The house, a classic example of Georgian revival architecture is in harmony with the refined English Renaissance garden, a very formal style of geometric designs, hedged mazes and integrated walkways that encircle the house. There’s also a Gentleman’s Orchard which I learned encompasses a diverse assortment of fruit trees; generally planted by the estate owner as a pleasurable hobby. I was there in fall so no fruit, but in other gardens there were plenty of dahlias, sunflowers, roses, as well as the last of some summer vegetables.
The many Filoli gardens have gone through numerous renovations since their beginnings in 1917 — a garden is a living entity that is perpetually in need of tending. That’s why I love the tomorrow of gardening. There’s always seeds to propagate, flowers to plant, vegetables to harvest, trees to prune and, yes, I even look forward to pulling the weeds that come back year in and year out.
It’s not easy to believe in tomorrow, sometimes, but the minute you see a new seedling emerge, or a flowering plant bloom or that first tomato on the vine the anticipation for what might come next brings with it hope. That’s what keeps me gardening. That and fresh tomatoes!