How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.

Smith’s remark treats gardening not as a mere pastime but as an instinctive human inclination—something “deeply seated” in feeling and memory. The phrasing suggests that the attraction to gardens crosses class and circumstance: people are drawn to cultivating, ordering, and beautifying a patch of earth because it answers a psychological need for rootedness, renewal, and quiet control over a small world. Implicitly, the quote also gestures toward gardens as cultural symbols (Eden, refuge, domestic peace), making the “liking” both practical (growing things) and imaginative (a space for reflection and hope).