7 Orchard Of an Orchard (excerpt) by Katherine Tynan Hinkson

8 Viewing Mount My Garden Lies Asleep by M. Aumonier

9 Alpine Display House Yellow Star-Grass by Sarah Jane Day

10 Oakwood The Garden That I Love (excerpt) by Christian Burke

11 Riverside By the Stream by Paul Laurence Dunbar

12 Heather Garden Sleep and Poetry (excerpt) by John Keats

1 Equinox Borders Bumble-Bee by Enid Blyton

2 Seven Acres The Clouds (excerpt) by Enid Blyton

3 Glasshouse Borders To a Butterfly (excerpt) by Marie Hedderwick Browne

4 Back to Nature Garden Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

5 Jubilee Arboretum Who Has Seen the Wind? By Christina Rossetti

1 Cherry Tree Avenue Foreword by Arthur Conan Doyle

2 Sundial The Dial of Flowers (excerpt) by Felicia Hemans

3 Doric Temple Address to a Soyokaze (excerpt) by Yone Noguchi

4 Cottage Garden Sonnets from the Portuguese Forty-Four: Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

5 Rose Garden Song (excerpt) by E. Nesbit

6 Birches Near Bowes-Lyon Pavilion A Young Birch by Robert Frost

Adult’s Poetry Trail Children’s Poetry Trail

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Foreword by Arthur Conan Doyle

If it were not for the hillocksYou’d think little of the hills;The rivers would seem tinyIf it were not for the rills.If you never saw the brushwoodYou would under-rate the trees;And so you see the purposeOf such little rhymes as these.

Address to a Soyokaze* (excerpt) by Yone Noguchi

When I am tired,We’ll rest, my head on your shoulder,And I’ll listen to your talesThat you heard under the rosesPassing through the woodland.When the tree throws its shadow on the ground(The shadow is its written song),And I see not its real meaning,You will instantly rise,And play the harp of leaves,And make me fully understand.

*‘Soyokaze’ is ‘zephyr’ in Japanese.

Sonnets from the Portuguese Forty-Four: Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers, So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!— take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine. Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

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4The Dial of Flowers (excerpt) by Felicia Hemans

’Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,As they floated in light away,By the opening and the folding of flowers,That laugh to the summer’s day.

Thus has each moment its own rich hue,And its graceful cup and bell,In whose colour’d vase might sleep the dew,Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.

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Adult’s Poetry Trail

Song (excerpt)

by E. Nesbit

The summer down the garden walksSwept in her garments bright;She touched the pale still lily stalksAnd crowned them with delight;She breathed upon the rose’s headAnd filled its heart with fire,And with a golden carpet spreadThe path of my desire.

A Young Birch by Robert Frost

The birch begins to crack its outer sheathOf baby green and show the white beneath,As whosoever likes the young and slightMay well have noticed. Soon entirely whiteTo double day and cut in half the darkIt will stand forth, entirely white in bark,And nothing but the top a leafy green –The only native tree that dares to lean,Relying on its beauty, to the air(Less brave perhaps than trusting are the fair.)And someone reminiscent will recallHow once in cutting brush along the wallHe spared it from the number of the slainAt first to be no bigger than a cane,And then no bigger than a fishing pole,But now at last so obvious a boleThe most efficient help you ever hiredWould know that it was there to be admired,And zeal would not be thanked that cut it downWhen you were reading books or out of town.It was a thing of beauty and was sentTo live its life out as an ornament.

Of an Orchard (excerpt)

by Katherine Tynan Hinkson

Very good in the grass to lieAnd see the network ‘gainst the sky,A living lace of blue and green,And boughs that let the gold between.

My Garden Lies Asleep by M. Aumonier

Safe in the arms of restful nightMy Garden lies asleep,Whilst I, like sentinel of something dear,Still vigil keep.

This eve I watched the lingering raysOf wondrous setting Sun,Till, in a sudden hush of shade, they vanishedOne by one. And then there came the vesper hymnsOf all the Garden Things,And incense rose from swaying LavenderOn the wind’s wings.

The little litanies of leaves I heard,The benisons of bees,And last, late Summer birds at Even-songFrom somewhere in the trees.

Now all is still for nothing wakes, or stirs,And all sounds cease.My heart is quiet too. This hour I shareThe Garden’s peace.

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Yellow Star-Grass by Sarah Jane Day

We watched at night the falling stars;And when, at dawn of day,Along the meadow thick besprent,These flecks of radiance lay,

We scarce could think they had not comeFrom out those shining showers,To flicker, yet unquenched, unspent,Stars in the grass, not flowers.

The Garden That I Love (excerpt) by Christian Burke

Not for me your Ribbon-Garden!Lawns with scarce a blade awry!Gentle flowers, I pray you, pardon,If I seem to pass you by,Hardly knowing your dear faces,In these prim and proper places!

There’s a garden I love better,Somewhere ‘neath these English skies,Suns shine brighter, rains fall wetter,On that flowery paradise;In a narrow space of groundAll the sweet o’ the year is found.

In untamed yet gracious orderFlowers flourish as they will,And in every bed and borderWealthy bees can sip their fill.

By the Streamby Paul Laurence Dunbar

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show,And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

Sleep and Poetry (excerpt)

by John Keats

What is more gentle than a wind in summer?What is more soothing than the pretty hummerThat stays one moment in an open flower,And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower?

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Bumble-Bee by Enid Blyton

Dusted with yellowThe Bumble-Bee comes,A good-natured fellowWho buzzes and hums.He squeezes himselfIn snapdragons smallWhere even an elfCould scarcely crawl.The hollyhocks nearAnd the foxgloves, too,Are happy to hearHis ‘How-do-you-do?’Steadily humming,His work he does,Listen, he’s coming – Buzz, Buzz, BUZZZZZZZ!

To a Butterfly (excerpt)

by Marie Hedderwick Browne

Butterfly, O butterfly,With gaily-jewelled wings,You make me think of fairy folkAnd of enchanted things.

You once were held a prisonerIn a castle grim and grey –A “chrysalis” folk called it –But you escaped away.

And now you flutter ‘mong the flowers,A restless roving elf,Or fold your wings and lie so still –A very flower yourself.

Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people’s feet Still going past me in the street. And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day?Who Has Seen

the Wind? By Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?Neither I nor you.But when the leaves hang trembling,The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I. But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

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The Clouds (excerpt)

by Enid Blyton

On the grass I love to lieAnd watch the clouds go sailing by;Many things they seem to me,Foam blown off a fairy sea,Downy feathers from a goose,Fleecy lambkins wandering loose,Scatterings of thistledown,Snippings from a pixy’s gown,Softly, silently they pass,Trailing shadows on the grass.

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Children’s Poetry Trail

RHS Registered Charity No: 222879/SC038262

rhs.org.uk/wisley

Humans evolved alongside plants. Throughout our history, we have been surrounded by them.

In the past few centuries, however, and especially in the last few decades, we as a species have

isolated ourselves from plants more and more, spending increasing amounts of time indoors,

away from the natural world.

Many studies have demonstrated that being around plants increases our sense of mental wellbeing. The sighing of wind through trees has been the soundtrack of humanity since

time immemorial.

So, what better way to reconnect than through language?

These poems were written in appreciation of the

natural world, and are a special treat for us humans, for only we can know word-for-word the thoughts of people we have never met, and even of those who died before we were born.

Franziska Wittenstein