When it comes to gardening poems, there’s no shortage, but I’ve always loved Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” His description of a field of daffodils is simply spectacular.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
It’s the captured moments like this that make gardening poems so lovely. Those mundane moments we all skim over on our journeys, a poet collects and gives to us as a gift. In fact, it’s not at all unusual for a poet and a gardener to be one in the same.
Take, for example, Rebecca Bowes’ ode to the Summer Garden.
” Sweet peas twine green fingers through
friendly fences,
beckoning each passer-by
with a come-hither scent.”
Have you ever heard such a lovely depiction of peas?
Other gardening poems help us connect with the small miracles that can happen outside of the garden. Linda Delmont’s Prize Fighter is one such poem. The emotions are right there, barely contained. Sadness, regret, but also hope. And if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that a garden, ultimately, is about hope.
When you can’t get outside to enjoy the colors, sounds, and smells of the garden, you have the next best thing with gardening poems. Let the finely crafted words of these writers bring the garden to you, along with heartwarming scenes and a reminder to notice and appreciate the little moments that we honor in our own gardens, wherever they may be.
Feel free to stay a while and enjoy all the gardening poems we have to share below. And be sure to check out our Gardening Poems Collection while you’re here, which features a hand-picked selection of our favorites from this category.
Gardening is an experience of the senses. No one is talking, drink it in. The site will tell us what to do if we listen. Realize its potential and appreciate the bounty of nature. A human being can create an experience out of nature. Let in the feeling of wildness and accept it. We hear […]
Candy probably isn’t what comes to mind when you think about a Spring garden poem. Daffodils? Tulips? Clover? Sure. But candy? Not so much. For that matter, what does candy even have to do with a garden? Well, if you have ever had the luxury of picking fresh peas and eating them straight out of […]
Visiting gardens this morning, like the neighborhood cleric making parish calls, I chat with peonies, poppies and fragrant heliotrope, and hope I carry contagions of helpfulness to other flowers. As I continue my quiet talk I’m weighted with gifts, gifts like cherished gold which I share along my route, thankful that the proverbial pleasant words […]
Just like your home is ideally a place to be comfortable and safe, so is a gardener’s soil a place for her plants to grow and thrive. A gardener’s soil provides her plants with the moisture and nutrition they need to live a happy life. In that soil is an ecosystem where earthworms and beetles […]
Above clusters of heart-shaped leaves sprouting white scalloped-edged bells, climbing a bending stalk, a bumblebee bizzes into a top fresh blossom. Oh, Bee, what do you see? About the Author: Susan Griffith, a former librarian and college professor, lives, writes, reads and grows flowers in the middle of Michigan’s lower peninsula. She reads children’s […]
Javier’s class is digging dirt in the community garden by P.S. 102 in the Bronx And Javier says: ”why am I digging dirt, I haven’t done anything wrong?’ He knows that men from Leland Ave., from the barrio, maybe from the block go to jail go to prison He knows that men from the block […]
There are many things I love about Spring. The smell in the air as the earth unthaws and the soil emerges again. The sound of birds returning home. The sight of forests of brown sticks becoming engulfed by green buds and then leaves. The eager anticipation of starting a garden anew, and wondering what may […]
Throughout history, many famous poets have drawn inspiration from nature to write poems about gardens and love. One of the most well-known examples is William Shakespeare, whose sonnets often used garden imagery to explore themes of love, beauty, and the passing of time. In Sonnet 18, he famously compares his beloved to a summer’s day, […]
There’s something magical about a well-crafted short poem that can transport you instantly to a vibrant garden, awaken your senses, and stir your soul. As an avid flower gardener, I’ve always found that brief verses and mini poems about much grander poems can really be fun to create, write down, and tuck in your pocket […]
That Japanese maple (purchased 1991, K-Mart, gallon-can, $2.57) has been cultivated into a lissome, not quite exquisite bonsai. But it thrives in miniature, mimicking the seasons flawlessly: like the cool, reflective waters of a hushed and silent pond. Trimmed, fertilized, repotted at (I’ll admit) less-than-ideal intervals this demur maple’s foliage flushes scarlet in November, each […]
