Shakespeare Garden

This charming garden in the English cottage-garden style exhibits plants mentioned in the Bard's poems and plays. More than 80 of the plants mentioned in the works of Shakespeare grow here, with spring bulbs being the first to appear as the winter wanes. Common or Shakespearean names, the botanical name, references for relevant quotations and, in some cases, a graphic representation of the plant, are displayed on labels.

A special donation from Henry C. Folger, founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., funded the construction of the original Shakespeare Garden in 1925. Located in the south field of the Children's Garden, it comprised a collection of herbs, flowers, shrubs, and trees flanking a flagstone path. A wooden bench nestling among the greenery completed the peaceful setting.

Over the years, the surrounding Austrian pines shaded out the garden, and in 1979 it was relocated to its present site. An oval brick path, lined on either side with flower beds, leads into the garden, and a teak bench and fountain help create the atmosphere of an English cottage garden of Elizabethan times.

Anne O’Neil

Anne's love of gardening began at the age of three, when she tended her own "secret garden," behind the wall of her mother's garden in Carlow, Ireland. There she first grew English primroses and violas, and her mother wisely allowed the lupines and snowball viburnums surrounding the area to be "shared plants." In pursuit of her passion, rooted in this first young experience with plants, she later earned a bachelor's degree in commerce with a concentration in horticulture from University College Dublin. Anne strongly believes that public gardens are a necessary resource for people because they fulfill a human need on so many levels, including cultural, aesthetic, scientific, emotional, and spiritual ones.

In the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare nature is interwoven with literary genius, providing graphic glimpses into the history and lifestyles of the Elizabethans. Familiar flowers and herbs were used to develop a mood, set the stage and convey the essence of a moral or idea. ''

“ ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many—either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry —why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.”

Othello, I, 3.