Master Gardener (2022)

Joel Edgerton: Narvel Roth

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Quotes 

• Narvel Roth : Gardening is a belief in the future. A belief that things will happen according to plan.

• Narvel Roth : It's so simple when it begins. You don't ask why? You forget how it started. One day leads to the next, the seeds of love grow, like the seeds of hate.

• Narvel Roth : The formal garden imposes geometric strictures on plants; Circles, squares, triangles. These are also known as French gardens. Informal gardens, also known as British gardens, were popularized in the 18th century, and adhere to the shapes and contours of nature. A third type, the wild garden, only appears to be wild. It contains a seemingly random variety of plants and shrubs, which supports insects and wildlife. Gardening is a belief in the future. A belief that things will happen according to plan. That change will come in its due time.

• Narvel Roth : Gardening is a belief in the future. A belief that things will happen according to plan. That change will come in its due time.

• Narvel Roth : She went on to explain that aesthetic gardens were a recent development. In colonial times, gardens were utilitarian. A cross between a grocery store and a pharmacy. In the gilded age, they became an entrance to high society, a place of conspicuous display.

• Narvel Roth : You know, people use to walk on the soil. Now they just walk on tar and concrete, wearing rubber soles. They use to sleep on the land. There was an exchange, and that was a healing process.

  Isobel Phelps : You amaze me when you get romantic like this.

• Narvel Roth : I have created this life, filled it with rules. Now seems the time to break one.

• Narvel Roth : She talked about her life. There's something missing in her. Something vital fell out, and something took its place.

• Narvel Roth : Norma, you asked me to look out for her.

  Norma Haverhill : Yeah, but I didn't think you were going to be Humbert Humbert in your own production of Lolita.

• R.G : And you must be Farmer John.

  Narvel Roth : I'm a gardener. That's why I wear these funny clothes, and carry these pruning shears. Part of my job. You know pruning shears, they can snap off a branch or a plant bulb, just like that. Same time it takes to snap off a finger, or some testicles. Hey, Sissy, think twice before you move. I've done a lot of pruning in my life. R.G. you got a warning from the police, I'm your second warning.

  R.G : Hey, chill proud boy.

• Narvel Roth : Lavender sage and plum poppies bloom the same time every year, but never quite the same way. Some years they are in giddy harmony, other years, they barely tolerate each other.

• Narvel Roth : I found a life in flowers. How unlikely is that?

• Maya Core : You know I wasn't really a drug addict, right?

  Narvel Roth : Oh, no, I didn't think you were. But if you know any, and they come along, there's a barf bag in the back.

• Narvel Roth : I thought you should know, I was once someone else. I was raised to hate people that were different than me, and I did, and I was good at it.

• Narvel Roth : How's Porchdog?

  Norma Haverhill : He's going to be alright. I thought I was going to have to pay the Vet a fortune, but he just up and recovered on his own. Some men are like that.

• Narvel Roth : The damage seems irreparable now, but, plants rejuvenate. That's what they do. Like us.

• Narvel Roth : A garden job well done is a visual pleasure. Where there was an unsightly tangle, there is a display of what should be there, instead of what should not be. Gardening is the manipulation of the natural world. A creation of order, where order is appropriate. The subtle adjustments of disorder, where that would be affected.

• Narvel Roth : Gardening is the most accessible of the arts. It's already there, every seed is a plant waiting to be unlocked. It was commonly thought that 150 years was the lifetime of a seed. In the 1950's a Japanese botanist discovered viable lotus seeds in an ice age lakebed. A substantial portion were germinated. It is now believed that the lifetime of a seed is between 850, and 1250 years. Given the right conditions, seeds can last indefinitely. I wear mine on my skin everyday.