Some Herbs in Shakespeare’s Plays

There’s Rosemary, that’s for remembrance;
pray, love, remember   Hamlet, iv. 5, 175

Here’s flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.   Winter’s Tale, iv. 4, 103

Those yellow Cowslip cheeks   Midsummer Night’s Dream, v. 1, 339

Half-way down
Hangs one that that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade! King Lear, iv. 6, 14

Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
I’ll set a bank of Rue, sour Herb of Grace  Richard II, 111. 4, 104

Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
The Bay-trees in our country are all withered.  Richard II, ii. 4, 7

There’s Fennel for you and Columbines.  Hamlet, iv. 5, 189

I was of late as petty to his ends
As is the morn-dew on the Myrtle leaf
To his grand sea.   Anthony & Cleopatra, iii. 12, 8

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality   Henry V, i. 1, 60

If we will plant nettles or sow lettuce,
Set hyssop, and weed up thyme......
The power and incorrigible authority
Of this lies in our wills.   Othello, i. ,3, 322

 

“I claim Shakespeare as equally a lover of flowers and gardening....His knowledge of plants was simply the knowledge that every man may have who goes through the world with his eyes open to the many beauties of Nature that surround him, and who does not content himself with simply looking, and then passing on, but tries to find out something of the inner meaning of the beauties he sees, and to carry away with him some of the lessons which they were doubtless meant to teach.”
Rev. H. Ellacombe, 1896

 

We offer several plant collections, including one with plants mentioned in the writings of William Shakespeare. Here is a list of collections:

www.goodwincreekgardens.com/CatalogByCategory.asp?CategoryID=31