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July 1, 2004
• A Renaissance garden rises A Renaissance garden rises Here's flowers for you. Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold that goes to bed with the sun, And with Him rises, weeping, these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle-age. The flowers mentioned in this passage from William Shakespeare's play "The Winter’s Tale," are all familiar to Berkshire gardeners. They are all spices, all with known tonic qualities used to cure, heal or create a passivity in mankind that is most desirable among the hot-blooded southern citizens of Sicily -- the locale of the play. Even the marigold, in description, is really calendula, often used as a spice in tisane -- or herbal tea. All of these plants are, or will be, among the more than 400 species scheduled to be a part of a new Renaissance garden on the grounds of Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox. Planting for this garden began on June 14 and is continuing throughout the summer and fall months. Located directly across the recreational plaza from the front doors of the Founders' Theater, the garden’s design is based upon traditional Elizabethan plans, composed of both flowers and herbs, along with shrubs, principally taken from Shakespeare’s own imagery in his plays and poems. These are being augmented by species known to have existed in Tudor gardens. Rochelle Brown, a volunteer who lives on Lake Garfield, is one of the principal designers of the new garden. "Well, I kind of designed it," Brown said in a recent telephone interview, "and I am in charge of getting the garden going." Brown originally worked with Mary Guzzy, who has since left the company, and is now working closely with Mel Cobb who oversees the entire Bankside Festival this year and was in on the discussions about the garden right from the beginning.
"Why have a Renaissance garden at all?" Cobbs asks rhetorically, when interviewed on this subect. He then launches into a story with a mythical background and a fascinating future. "The myth is that at the end of his life Shakespeare planted a mulberry at his home at New Place in Stratford and, get this, it is still there.” He breaks into a smile at this point in his history. "The real essence of the story is that in 1934 the Central Park Conservancy took a cutting for the Shakespeare garden in New York and this second generation tree is still there. There's also the fact that it may be on its last legs. The curator there is taking cuttings from the Central Park tree, and two of them are for us. There are 12 cuttings in all, I think, and he and his staff will look after them until they’re ready to replant. That will make our tree a third generation from that tree that Shakespeare actually planted. In terms of the garden, it reinforces what Tina Packer wants to do here: making modern connections to Shakespeare and the Elizabeth period. This is a direct connection to something growing in his own time. We’ll have plants, herbs, Shakespearean philosophies represented here. You can get a personal, contemporary connection with the originals.” The cuttings will be taken in November, and spend at least one year in a controlled environment. The tree will make its appearance in the new garden sometime in 2006. Many things have changed since Brown first sat down with Guzzy to begin designing the "historic" site. "We discovered that we had some drainage problems from the long hillside and the parking lot," she said during a recent walk-through of the still in-progress space, “so we had to make some drastic changes including using raised beds. I don't much like them, but we’re planting dead nettle (a form of lamium with white flowers) and chamomile, both of which will eventually drape over the beams that side the beds. I suppose I won’t object to them as much as I do now.” Brown spends a great deal of her time in the garden in Lenox and not enough time in her own garden. Still, it is a labor of love and she knows a great deal about the plants, the work and the goals of this particular project. "In fact," she stated, "I did so much research on the plants that sometimes I just get lost among them." Among the plants scattered throughout the glade are English daisy, sweet william, columbine, violet, lavender, English roses, wormwood, rue, primrose -- known as oxslip in Shakespeare's day, gilly flowers or carnations, common buttercup called cuckoo buds, English bluebell and dilly flowers, or daffodils. In the fall there will be a festival of bulb planting. "Purple anemones and dillys," Brown said, "are perfect for the hillside." Shakespeare actually called the latter daffodils in “The Winter's Tale”: “Daffodils, that come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.” "Little symbolic acts like this make the decisions that do the work," Cobb said. "Our goal is have this garden be almost entirely made up of perennials, not annuals the way it is now," Brown said. She has recently added four Turks head lilies in three different spots in the garden. "Things here will keep getting larger,” she added. "Peonies, tulips, flowers that continue year after year.” The entrance to the garden, partially shielded by stands of flowering shrubs, is flanked on either side by the raised garden patches. To the right is the embankment reaching upward to Founders Alley and the theater behind it. To the left and directly in front are large, old trees, a wooden sidewalk and a small stage. Behind the garden is the rear of one of the old mansions, St. Martin's, complete with a two story curved, almost turret-like structure. If you try hard enough you can imagine this garden on the courtyard level of the ruins of an old English castle. It’s a tranquil setting, shaded and sunny at the same time. It is easy to imagine the possibilities here. In keeping with that concept the company is offering performances in the garden this year with the official Bankside opening scheduled for this Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. Among the festivities on that day will be a performance of a new play by Julianne Glantz entitled "Mrs. Pringle's Porch." The work, a 15 minute one-act play for children, will begin at 3. Other performances of the play take place at 6:45, prior to mainstage performances. One area of the garden still to be completed is the War of the Roses garden with both white and red roses, symbolizing the two warring factions of that bloody, 30-year struggle for power: the white rose of the house of York and the red rose of Lancaster. This will eventually be enclosed in shaped boxwood. Scattered throughout the garden are eight handcrafted wooden park benches made by Janice Shields of Cut It Out in conjunction with students from the Berkshire Union Free School at Berkshire Farm Center in New Lebanon, N.Y. "The Berkshire Farm Center has offered to winter over our potted herbs this year," Brown noted. "They have the greenhouse there and they really want to help.” Talking about the history of such gardens, Brown believes, based on her research, that the English garden really came into its own during the reign of Elizabeth I, who was known for her roses and dubbed the Rose Queen. Designed and planned gardens, complete with walks, benches, stages and even raised beds, were a fall-out from the Italian Renaissance gardens. Another English author, Vita Sackville-West (one half of the play "Vita and Virginia" which the company mounted successfully last season and will revive this season), wrote in 1983, "Successful gardening is not necessarily a question of wealth, it is a question of love, taste, and knowledge." Shakespeare & Co.'s garden was begun with a small grant from IMLS for the Rose Project that covered a whole raft of things done under the umbrella of the Rose Playhouse. It has since been supported by Windy Hill Farm in Stockbridge which donated shrubs, The Corn Crib, run by Ruth Ziegler, in Sheffield which gave the garden both annuals and perennials, Dicken Crane of Holiday Farms who brought in 25 yards of mulch for the hillside garden, Ward's Nursery, Sheffield Foods, Eastover, Boy Scout Troop No. 1 in Pittsfield, Pam Johnson and numerous local volunteers who have worked with Brown, Cobb, Guzzy and others to create the gardens. Working with small budget numbers ($5,000) and high budget dreams, Brown and Cobb have supplied the knowledge and encouraged, through their tasteful decisions, the love and support of the rest of their team. "Use the garden for its other purpose," Cobb encouraged, "We want the place to be predominantly for rest and renewal. The idea is that its close to the theaters, but you can go in to this quiet place and there's nothing going on except the flowers.” |
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