Mirabel Osler - A gentle plea for chaos (1989)

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The very soul of a garden is shrivelled by zealous regimentation.

Mirabel Osler
Architectural lines such as those from hedges, walls, paths or topiary are the bones of a garden. But it is the artist who then allows dishevelment and abandonment to evolve.... How rare to see a real cottage garden. It is far more difficult to achieve than a contrived garden. It requires intuition, a genius for letting things have their head.

Mirabel Osler
Planting trees is a venture into the future, it is a hand held out to other generations.

Mirabel Osler
We have learnt one thing the hard way; it is this: take other gardeners' advice on design, or accept their plants, only after you have seen their gardens.

Mirabel Osler
The intransigence of roses is something we have had to accept and now... I know which are docile and benevolent from those which are headstrong; those that are pliant from those which are pig-headed.

Mirabel Osler
Water is compulsive; it draws each of us to gaze transfixed in a becalmed state which few other things induce so forcibly.

Mirabel Osler
Why on earth do the French torture trees? Why those aggressive amputations? Espalier and cordon, fan-trained or pyramidal are all brilliant and desirable forms in certain places, but in France they seem to go mad with hostility toward their trees.

Mirabel Osler
There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.

Mirabel Osler
I imagine up and down the country during these blessed months of short days and long nights, a whole self-seeding of gardeners, with backs unbent, having put aside their boots, trowels and twine, who can now have time to let their thoughts hang out: a time when everything is possible.

Mirabel Osler
Starting a garden is the beginning of making a series of mistakes.

Mirabel Osler
As for garden photographers, how differently they see things. With what ease the camera seems to compose a picture of great beauty with its discriminating lens. The naked eye can't censor some ugly sight on the periphery of vision; the photographer takes the perfect shot and picks for us just what we need to see.

Mirabel Osler
To be able to walk under the branches of a tree that you have planted is really to feel you have arrived with your garden. So far we are on the way: we can now stand beside ours.

Mirabel Osler