[Publib] Bard's Gardens

[Kevin Okelly]

This reminds me of Eugene Schieffelin (1827-1906) who supposedly wanted
all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare to be represented in the avian
population of the United States. For whatever reason, he released 60
starlings (Henry IV, Part I, Act I, Scene 3) in Central Park  in 1890.
They bred rapidly, taking over habits of native species and destroying
crops. Their acidic droppings can contribute to structural damage to
buildings. They also can spread histoplasmosis. 

Kevin O'Kelly
Reference and Cataloging Librarian
Somerville Public Library
79 Highland Ave.
Somerville, MA 02143
(617)-623-5000


-----Original Message-----
From: Backwage at aol.com
To: publib at webjunction.org
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:27:57 EDT
Subject: [Publib] Bard's Gardens

> And now about those Shakespeare gardens.  For those of you who like to 
> begin with research, go here:  
> _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_garden_
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_garden)  and  see about the 
> subject.  For the rest, understand that there has been a sort  of
> horticultural 
> mania for Shakespeare-themed gardens in the English-spouting  world. 
> Some 
> fool or other gets a load of money and decides to throw down  some
> pansies on 
> the evidence that the good old Bard himself wrote about  'em.  
>  
> No harm done there.  The problem as I've found it is that the concept  
> makes a tough theme for a garden.  The different species are also hard 
> to 
> cultivate in some areas (outside England) and they don't always make a 
> decent 
> presentation (i.e., bloom) at the same moment.  Then there is the 
> problem of 
> authenticity.  If one desires to have planted the actual types  of
> plants 
> and flowers present and available in Shakespeare's time, the garden 
> will look 
> odd to the contemporary viewer.  For example, Shakespeare's  eglantine
> rose 
> (Rosa rubiginosa) is a very gangly, aggressive plant with 
> fantastically 
> hooked thorns which blooms only once each year--the actual flowers  are
> the 
> size of a quarter, and unimpressive to today's gardener.  I had one  of
> these 
> plants at my old house.  It got no bigger than a master bedroom,  could
> have 
> killed a passer-by, and never ever gave off its reputed scent of 
> apples, 
> even with its fresh leaves were crushed according to the rule.  On  the
> other 
> hand the hips left behind later were quite pretty in winter.
>  
> If you want the pansies Shakespeare knew, you will find them almost  
> microscopically small in flower, not the huge clown-faced things of
> today.   Other 
> plants will present the same situation.
>  
> One nice alternative to the authentic garden is to plant roses with
> names  
> from Shakespeare's plays.  Grower David Austin has done a splendid job
> of  
> "recreating" old rose appearance and fragrance, and even naming some
> roses 
> after  you-know-who's characters.  Go here to see:  
> _http://www.davidaustinroses.com/american/Advanced.asp_ 
> (http://www.davidaustinroses.com/american/Advanced.asp) 
>  
> Now, these are also not the roses of olden times, but those of a later 
> era--if that.  They are a good attempt at reviving what used to be best
> in  
> older roses and a lot of fun to grow.  If however you are a rose
> person,  which 
> assumes you enjoy that package of mingled joys and frustrations.  
>  
> Librarians will be pleased to know that practically every author,
> literary  
> character and/or famous place in literature has had a rose (and
> sometime 
> other  plant) named after it.  Want to find out?  Google in the name of
> the  
> person and then the word 'rose.'  It's a joke among rose fanciers that 
> there 
> is not an Adolf Hitler rose only because the stock were all killed
> during  
> the war.
>  
> By the way, to where would you direct a patron who wished a
> comprehensive  
> listing of all modern roses?  And where to find the growers of same?  
> Ah, 
> I'll leave that to you to discover.  And Ruth, don't you dare tell 
> them.
>  
> Michael McGrorty
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