The History of the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens
video guide transcript
[Gardener] The History of the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens
Welcome to the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens!
The Gardens reside near the western edge of the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, just northwest of the university’s museum of natural history on Broadway. Specifically, they are in the courtyard due west of the outdoor Mary Rippon Theatre, bounded by the Education Building on the north and west and Hellems Arts and Sciences building on the east. The perimeter of that courtyard is set aside for the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens by the University of Colorado.
In 1991 Marlene Cowdrey founded the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens as a volunteer organization providing educational support to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, students and faculty of CU-Boulder, and the public. The Gardens are a program within the University of Colorado’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. In 2014 we also became a member of the American Association of Public Gardens.
Marlene Cowdry, the founder, said:
[Marlene Cowdry] “The gardens are a source of wonder and delight that flowers from the entwining of two loves - gardening and Shakespeare’s plays.”
[Gardener] Marlene Cowdrey was the first garden guide. She wore the color of lavender always, with an apron and a flowery broad-brimmed sun hat, and a basket of dried flowers hanging on her arm. Gardeners Mary Karen Euler, Holly Hart, Monica Van Zale, and Lola Wilcox personally guided visitors for years upon years as well. And now you can walk the Gardens with this guide whenever it might please you.
[Marlene Cowdry] “My hope for the future of the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens is that all of us develop a deeper understanding of the guardianship of the plants, and richer insights into the poetry of William Shakespeare. Let us nurture the gardens and each other.”
[Gardener] Members of the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens are volunteers interested in gardens or Shakespeare or both. We are responsible for designing, planting, and maintaining the Colorado Shakespeare Gardens.
In late winter and early spring we meet indoors several times, once for each Shakespeare play in the upcoming season of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Members research and present the culture and history of each play and some of the plants referenced in that play.
There is abundant information about Shakespeare’s flowers in books and on the internet. For instance, we have access to a modern reprint of a Historie of Plants published in 1597, known as Gerard’s Herbal. Our major source is the 1878 volume Plant Lore and Garden Crafts of Shakespeare, by a scholarly gentleman, the Reverend Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, Vicar of Bitton in Gloucestershire. In addition to his fine knowledge of the plants, he included an index of the plants mentioned by play, act, and scene. His book was instrumental in developing the very idea of gardens dedicated to the plants in the works of William Shakespeare. Thank you, Reverend Ellacombe!
Through the summer and fall we tend the Gardens, and then we rest, like the plants, in October, November, and December.
From its very beginning, Colorado Shakespeare Festival plays were performed outdoors in the Mary Rippon Theater. The university theater was constructed between 1936 to 1939 as a place for lectures and concerts. It was also used as a chapel. President George Norlin requested, and the regents approved, the theatre to be a memorial for Mary Rippon, believed to be the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. The university, many friends, and her former students donated funds. It was also a WPA project.
Mary Rippon came to Boulder in January of 1878 to head the Department of Germanic Language and Literature. She was very fond of flowers, and there are many references in her diary about ones that she comes upon in the nearby hills and fields. She was famous for growing lilies of the valley in her yard; she brought the pips from Germany. When the then president of the university, Dr. Sewall, his wife, and Mary Rippon wanted to landscape the campus, there were only a few trees around the first building, Old Main. In 1882 workmen with horse-drawn wagons hauled in topsoil which promptly blew away. They hauled more, and oral tradition says that Mary Rippon soaked bed sheets and placed them over the ground to help with seed germination. The three planted grass, lilacs, apple trees, and wild plums east of Old Maine. The workmen planted over 100 maples and elms. When they uncovered large rocks they used them to build a dike for a pond.
Shakespeare plays began in 1944 when James Sandoe staged Romeo and Juliet. The Colorado Shakespeare Garden founder, Marlene Cowdry, attended the Shakespeare plays in Boulder starting in 1960. The idea for the Shakespeare Gardens sprang from her visit to Stratford-upon-Avon in the spring of 1984. The earliest plants came from her own garden.
Our English advisor, Julia Slingo (now Dame Julia) was at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from 1986 to 1990. She returned to Boulder to visit the Gardens in October 1991, our foundation year. We share knowledge and seeds with gardeners in England and the United States. Both plants and expert advice are provided by University staff, growers like Harlequin Gardens (who taught us how to prune), and specialists like Chet Anderson, who overwintered the rosemary shrub for many years. We bring plants from our own gardens, and locate non-local plants and seeds on line and through special catalogs.
On line at Colorado Shakespeare Gardens dot org, you can find pictures of specific plants and gardens, information on the plants and the plays in which they appear, and a partial list of books about the plants and gardens familiar to Shakespeare.
These Gardens are dedicated to the research, garden design, planting, and maintenance of the plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. The gardeners hope you experience wonder and delight with Shakespeare and the many plant discoveries awaiting you in these Gardens. If you want to become more involved, please select the Getting Involved section.