Shakespeare’s Garden

Author:  Autumn

William Shakespeare often used flowers and herbs in his plays and poetry.  Many gardens have been planted around the country using the plants he referred to in his writing.  The most famous Shakespeare’s Garden is in New York City’s Central Park.

This stairway leads from one level of Central Park’s Shakespeare’s Garden to another.

They use rustic fences throughout.

I visited the garden last fall, and it did not have the lush blooming flowers that you see here.  It was getting ready to go to sleep for the winter.

San Francisco also has a famous Shakespearean garden.

The nice thing is that you can have a Shakespearean garden in your own back yard with the help of this book:

It sites the passages he wrote that make references to flowers and herbs and also animals.  Here’s an example that I took from my copy:

Page 53 takes a passage from Hamlet.

Ophelia says, “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember, and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

A fun project would be to print out his passages that reference  flowers you like, glaze them so they look aged, decoupage them onto small plaques, and then place them beside the plants in your garden.  I did this a few years ago at our other house and had a lot of fun with it.  It was a very mini version of Shakespeare’s Garden.  I hope this gives you some ideas that you can use in your own back yards.

Take care.

Images found on Google.