Shakespeare Garden and Rose Garden from Stanley Park

  

It is still hot here in Vancouver, so we walked again in the shadow of secular and giants trees from Stanley Park: Douglas-fir, Walnuts, Katsura tree, Western Red Cedar, Red Oak, Austrian Black Pine or Cherry Trees.



After passing near the Lord Stanley Statue, following the left side of the Pipeline Road,
walking in central area of the Stanley Park you can admire the blooming Rose Garden and Shakespeare's Garden.
We are so fortunate to have this urban oasis which offers endless things to do and see.
















Starting from The right side of Stanley Park Pavilion indicator, we find that Stanley Park's Rose Garden was developed in 1920 by Kiwanis Club. On the plaque can be read 
" Kiwanis Club Rose Plot. 
First planted in 1920 to demonstrate the possibilities of Rose Culture in Vancouver  'The City Beautiful'"

This beautiful spot has a breathtaking beauty in summer season with more than 3,500  vibrantly colored old-fashioned rose varieties and scented rose plants,

as well as numerous floral display beds of brights and vivid mix of perennials and  annuals plants. In this flowerbeds I found 3 varieties of fragrant "Queen of the Night", Nicotiana plants with mauve, yellow and white flowers;  Garden Thyme and Lemon Thyme; Geraniums with variegated foliage  and many others scented herbs.

 

Surrounded by bright colors, Ginkgo Biloba tree invites you to rest and enjoy his ancestral beauty.   Nearby, on the other side of the Rose Garden Pavilion, cherry trees bend their foliage crown under the weight of their years and  is the demarcation between Rose Garden and Shakespeare Garden.

Near Daybreak Cherries is a quote from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" - "So we grow together, like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries moulded on one stem".

Shakespeare's Garden features a memorial for William Shakespeare, the "Bard of Avon", England's National Poet.  His statue was sculpted in 1935 by the architect J.F. Watson, and these days seems to be one of the Stanley's Park Monuments somehow lost-sighted when Vancouver's Park Administration planted flowerbeds.
Shakespeare's Garden was officially opened for the Golden Jubilee celebration in Stanley Park by Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor General of Canada On August 28, 1936.

Shakespeare monument quote was chosen from Ben Johnson's poem 'Memorial to Shakespeare,' which reads "He was not of an age, but for all time."

Near it, in this themed garden, signs and plaques on the trees provide relevant quotations from his plays and poetry:  Romeo and Juliet, The taming of the Shrew, Coriolanus, Measure for Measure...

Cedrus Atlantica / Atlas Cedar was used by Shakespeare in "Henry VIII": 'And like a mountain cedar, reach his branches to all the plains about him: our children's children shall see this, and bless heaven" '

and Black Locust / Robinia Pseudoacacia  in Othello "The food that to him is a luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida" 

On Black Walnut / Juglans Nigra is a fragment from "The taming of the Shrew": " Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut shell, a knack, a toy, a tick, a baby's cap."

and nearby Red Oak/ Quercus Rubra, that was used as symbol in  "Measure to Measure" "Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak" is a commemorative plaque in honour of Wys Thomas.


Let me add that Western Red Cedar / Thuja Plicata, has been used as a symbol for strength, power and continuity in many plays:
Henry VI: " As on a a mountain top the cedar shows, That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm, Even to affright thee with the view of thereof"
Venus and Adonis: " The sun ariseth in his majesty; Who doth the world so gloriously behold The cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold"
Titus Andronicus: " Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we. No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops size" 


On the official site of Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation you can find more information about Shakespeare's Garden trees and their semnifications in Shakespeare's opera, and a printable map of the garden.

Thematic gardens where plants mentioned in the Shakespeare's works are cultivated, were built everywhere around the world. I'm pretty sure you can find one near you.