Shakespeare Garden

Shakespeare Garden is a formal garden on the western slope of Central Park below Belvedere Castle, planted with over 120 species of flowers, herbs, and plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare.

Each planting is labeled with the Shakespeare quotation in which it appears, creating a literary botanical experience where visitors can walk among the roses of Romeo and Juliet, the rosemary of Hamlet, and the violets of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The garden was originally established in 1916, three hundred years after Shakespeare's death, as part of a worldwide commemoration. It was redesigned and replanted by the Central Park Conservancy in the 1980s.

The garden's location near the Delacorte Theater, where free Shakespeare in the Park performances are staged each summer, creates a thematic connection between the living plants of the garden and the living performances of Shakespeare's plays nearby.

Shakespeare Garden provides a unique intersection of literature, horticulture, and public space, where the flowers mentioned in the greatest works of English literature bloom each season in one of the world's most visited parks.