Behind the California Academy of Sciences, a brick path leads through a gate into the Shakespeare Garden, planted in 1928 with one rule: every species growing here appears in Shakespeare’s plays or poems. Rosemary, pansies, columbine, rue; bronze plaques along the wall quote the passages that earned each plant its bed.
The bust of Shakespeare in the niche at the back was cast from a 17th-century original in the church at Stratford-upon-Avon and given by the mayor of Shakespeare’s hometown. The garden is small, walled, free, and open dawn to dusk, and it books out for weddings on weekend afternoons for obvious reasons.
It sits two minutes from the concourse crowds and most park visitors never find the gate.
Part of a self-guided walking tour
