Today we celebrate the birthday of the greatest playwright who ever lived - and he incorporated over 200 seeds, flowers, fruits, herbs, grasses, and trees into his large body of work. We'll also learn about Wordsworth’s favorite flower - lesser celandine. We’ll hear some words about the flowers we often fall in love with - simple flowers. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book about Kitchen Gardening. And then we’ll wrap things up with English Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) for the patron saint of England, St. George.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News Isabel Bannerman on the evocative pleasure of scented plants | House & Garden | Isabel Bannerman   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events April 23, 1564 Today is the birthday of the English author, poet, and playwright William Shakespeare. A lover of gardens and the science of botany, William Shakespeare included hundreds of references to flora and fauna in his plays and sonnets. And each flower would have conveyed symbolic meaning to his audiences. In addition, William was a master of metaphor.   Since William’s death, there have been many books written on the elements of nature mentioned in Shakespeare’s works. In 1906, the garden author and illustrator Walter Crane created beautiful anthropomorphized plants mentioned in Shakespeare's plays as people in his 1906 book, "Flowers from Shakespeare's Garden." In 2017, a book called Botanical Shakespeare by the Shakespeare historian Gerit Quealy was published. The subtitle for the book is An Illustrated Compendium of All the Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, Trees, Seeds, and Grasses Cited by the World's Greatest Playwright. And, by the way, this book is gorgeous - the watercolor illustrations are incredible, and I love all the quotes and insights provided by Gerit. Helen Mirren wrote the forward. Today, Shakespeare fans and gardeners delight in Shakespeare Gardens, and there are roughly 50 of these specialty gardens around the world that only cultivate plants mentioned in William’s work. There's a lovely semi-hidden Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. There’s another Shakespeare Garden with over 50 flowers on the Evanston campus of Northwestern. Central Park has a little Shakespeare Garden located between 79th and 80th Streets. And in 1914, the Dunedin Botanic Garden in New Zealand established a Shakespeare Garden, including a replica of Shakespeare’s Boxwood Knot Garden in Stratford on Avon. Here are some favorite flower quotes from Shakespeare: Sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make haste.  — William Shakespeare, Richard III There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. That’s for thoughts... – William Shakespeare, Hamlet I know a bank where the wild thyme grows,  Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,  With swee