Elizabethan Gardens

The Elizabethan garden followed in the tradition of the early medieval garden in that it was both functional and decorative. It provided food and medicine for the household as well as herbs and flowers for floor strewing and cloth dying.  The medieval garden also had a separate area for pleasure or for religious contemplation. It was referred to as a Hortus Conclusus, Latin for enclosed garden, or a Pleasaunce, a garden of delight. The Pleasaunce was a small secluded area for recreation, as Esther Singleton remarks in her book The Shakespeare Garden, it was literally a place of re-creation, a place to renew the body and refresh the mind and spirit.

A Medieval Pleasaunce or Garden of Delight

By the Elizabethan era gardens and gardening had become a fashionable pastime with a number of books written on the subject, including: Thomas Hill’s The Profitable Arte of Gardening (1563) and The Gardener’s Labyrinth (1577), Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1580), Francis Bacon’s Essay of Gardening (1625) and John Parkinson’s Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629).

If you wish to create a Shakespeare garden in an authentic sixteenth/early seventeenth manner, below are some of the essential features that you may want to include, albeit on a smaller scale.

Symmetry and Order 

 

Gardens were usually square and enclosed within high hedges of Privet, Holly, Rosemary or Sweetbriar or within walls made of brick or stone.

The garden, depending on its size, was divided into separate areas each for a different purpose. John Parkinson suggested four separate areas that consisted of:

• A garden of pleasant flowers, the Pleasaunce, for the purposes of sport, recreation and relaxation.
• A kitchen garden, for vegetables and herbs.
• A “physic garden”, containing herbs and flowers for medicinal use, also known as simples.
• An orchard, to provide the household with fruit. 

Likewise William Lawson in The Country House-wives Garden (1617) suggested that each household should have two gardens, a kitchen garden and a flower garden.

Kitchen Garden at Hampton Court Palace

Gardens were laid out in symmetrical rectangular beds with small paths between them. These paths were usually made of sand, gravel or turf, some were planted with sweet smelling  herbs, Francis Bacon suggested that "Those which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three—that is, burnet, wild thyme and water-mints ; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." In The Tempest Shakespeare referred to the wider paths as “forthrights.”  These paths allowed plants and vegetables to be picked more easily and let people appreciate the flowers from a closer view.  The beds were often raised about two or three inches from ground level and were edged or boxed with either wood or shrubs such as Privet, Yew, Rosemary, Thyme, Savory, Germander or Boxwood. This was for decoration and to keep animals out.

Rectangular beds, from The Gardener's Labyrinth 1577

This is where gardens of the manor house and stately home began to differ from those of the cottage. The cottage garden was smaller and primarily practical with perhaps a small area for pleasure, more reminiscent of the early medieval garden; whereas in the manor house garden the Pleasance was larger, more elaborate and more ornamental. For those wanting to create a Shakespearean garden a small cottage garden is probably the easiest to reproduce and would have been like the one Shakespeare had at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“It standeth north north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious knotted garden”

- Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I, Scene I

In manor houses and stately homes the design of the garden corresponded with the layout of the house, with paths and forthrights mirroring the rectangular lines of the windows and doors. The beds within the pathways were referred to as knots; they could either contain flowers “open knots” or shrubs such as Yew, Privet and Rosemary. Most knots formed simple rectangular shapes, others were inspired by the Italian renaissance and included intricate scrolls and interlaces. Sometimes a maze or labyrinth was included in the design, the most famous being the one at Hampton Court.

For a guide on how to create your own knotted garden see here.

Knot Designs in William Lawson's The Country House-wives Garden (1617)

Symmetry within the garden was also maintained in the choice of flowers. Flowers of similar height and similar flowering time were placed together. Colours however were blended, with herbs and flowers of different hue being placed in the same bed. There was also a focus on scent, Francis Bacon valued plants and flowers that would “perfume the air” and so plants with harmonising scents would also be planted together.

Where paths or forthrights intersected an ornament of some kind would be placed. This could be a sundial, an urn, a statue, usually in the form of a figure from classical mythology or a fountain. At Hampton Court creatures from heraldry were carved into wood and mounted onto tall posts.

A Garden for the Year

The Elizabethan garden was in use throughout the year; Francis Bacon said that “there ought to be gardens for all months of the year,” meaning there should be something of interest to look upon even in the winter months when a garden can often look bare. This was partly achieved by the intricate designs of the knots and the topiary. These designs however were best appreciated from an elevated position, so terraces, viewing mounts and pavilions were built within the garden for this purpose.

“Walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard,”

- Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Scene II

Another interesting feature of an Elizabethan garden that would have been used throughout the year was the arbour. An arbour is a covered walkway with an arch formed from either trees or vines such as Eglantine, Woodbine and Honeysuckle.

“And bid her steal into the pleached bower

Where honeysuckles ripened by the sun

Forbid the sun to enter,”

- Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, Scene I

The "pleached bower" formally at Drayton Manor

The word “pleach” comes from the Latin plectere meaning to plait or interweave. Pleaching involved intertwining various branches and vines to form a canopy. Arbours were places for people to walk and to take rest; they were also associated with the clandestine meetings of lovers. It is under such a canopy that Titania sits with her lover Bottom.

“Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms ...

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist ;”

- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV, Scene I

Here Shakespeare uses the interlaced vines as a metaphor for embracing arms. Honeysuckle, because it entwined around itself and any plant it was next to became an emblem of affection.

Restored Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth

To recreate an Elizabethan garden at home you can start by dividing your garden into separate rectangular beds with small paths between them. The edges boxed with Rosemary or Thyme. In each of the beds or knots you can either grow the herbs and flowers mentioned by Shakespeare or plant shrubs to create a knotted garden. Large pieces of topiary may not be possible but you can easily include an ornament such as an urn or sundial and place them where two paths cross.