“When he was young, he used to go out into the woods on his own in Liverpool. I’d say, ‘Did you go on your own?’ ‘Yeah, I used to go off on my bike for hours just to be outside in the air, in the elements and beautiful trees.’” - Olivia Harrison
“One afternoon when I was invited down to [Harrison’s Surrey] pink bungalow, he took me out in the garden to sit by a pond. He started to talk about it. ‘You know, Al, I made that pond myself. I filled it myself, from tap water. There was nothing in it, just a hole and some water. And now look at all those insects in it – isn’t it amazing how it’s come to life all on its own. How does that happen?’ He was clearly thrilled and amazed by this little mystery of life and this, I have to add, was quite some time before the Maharishi appeared in the lives of the Beatles.” - Alistair Taylor
“[Kinfauns] is less lavish than the other Beatle houses but it has unusual touches such as a little conservatory full of rare plants that mystify and intrigue George. He spends hours looking at them, worrying about the leaves going brown.” - Maureen Cleave
“He said he felt close to God in nature […] He wasn’t just out in the garden, he was IN the garden. He would walk out the door and come back in with the tiniest little thing and he’d go, ‘Look at that!’ – and he’d hand you the tiniest little flower.” - Olivia Harrison
“He’d notice things. We’d walk along in the grass and he’d bend over and go, ‘Oh, look at that little guy’ and it would be a bug. I’d say, ‘How did you see that?’ He was just really present.” - Olivia Harrison
“The way nature played tricks amused him, too. Once he planted lots of this pinky coloured weed on one side of the lake only for it all to spring up on the other side. ‘It’s jumped,’ he laughed. Without a doubt, George never felt more at peace than when he was gardening […] Every time I go out there, I think he’ll just pop out from behind a shrub, like he used to.” - Olivia Harrison
“He’d garden at night-time until midnight. He’d be out there squinting because he could see, at midnight, the moonlight and shadows, and that was his way of not seeing the weeds or imperfections that would plague him during the day. He missed nearly every dinner because he was in the garden. He would be out there from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.” - Dhani Harrison
“George’s sister-in-law Irene said he pointed out a group of blue firs saying, ‘Do you realise that when Frank Crisp planted those he was never going to see them…he knew by the time he was an old gentleman he wasn’t going to see this garden looking as he’d planned it,’ and he felt the same way.” - The Gardens Trust
“The last time I saw George was in summer 2001. He invited me to come to Austria where he stayed at Gerhard Berger’s house in Going. Even though all these cancer therapies had left their marks, behind his hearty laugh and his bright eyes one would have never suspected a seriously ill man. We were having a break after a walk, resting in the grass when suddenly he looked at me and said: ‘Do you know that it has taken me many, many years until I realised how special these meadows with their soft grasses are to me? Somehow I feel we have a very close relationship. I just love the seemingly endless meadows with their long and soft grasses and the waves they make when the wind is blowing. It’s like cherishing the wind of life rather than struggling against it all the time. So, Klaus, when I’m gone, all you have to do is stand in a meadow, feel the waving grass and I will be close to you.’“ - Klaus Voormann
