Shakespeare Garden New York

Shakespeare Garden
by Indra Chopra, travel writer

Located in a corner of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, New York is the ‘Shakespeare Garden’, a green tribute to the Bard of Elizabethan England. Designed in English cottage garden style with flagstone path-way, fountain and a lone teak wood bench, the garden, features nearly 80 species of flowers and herbs mentioned in William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. The use of Shakespearean or common names, special quotations and graphic descriptions help to identify the plants. I recognized parsley (photograph); the poppy (photograph ) and the garlic (photograph): everyday plants infused with literary qualities.

The original 1925 Shakespeare garden was a gift of Henry C. Folger, founder of the ‘Folger Shakespeare Library’ in Washington, D.C., and his wife Emily. Henry Folger felt that “the poet is one of our best sources, one of the wells from which we Americans draw our national thought, our faith and our hope” and by helping fund the Garden brought Shakespeare closer to the people.

The present Garden was relocated to its existing site in 1979 to give it more space to blossom. The best time to visit the Garden is late May when the flowers are in full splendour, especially the roses.