good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of monday the 25th of october a really lovely awesome morning here in england with the sky blue and a few white clouds around but the sun has risen over the mulberry tree here and um and i'm sitting in the our walled garden the meadow as it was but it's looking day by day very different uh you're looking at the house at the moment with the sky above it but also in all that foliage flocks of sparrows live and uh sparrows are chattery birds but they're also always on the watch and down here in the meadow garden we not only have the chicken run but also we have the shall we call it the stable for kemi and winnie because they are at the moment in the business of clearing all this ground so that the seeds which have fallen will have good earth in which to germinate when spring comes but for the moment there's an awful lot of awesome work to do and the hens are around helping them but the moment we open up this little stable in which they live at night with all the straw there and there's loose food on the ground there the sparrows take the opportunity to flock down and all squabbling go in there and search about for whatever they can find to eat it's quite a cheerful kind of sound you'll hear outside the iron gate as well russell calling and crowing for the morning and he'll become quite an image in our reflection later as you'll see but for the moment we're just going to start our prayers and then we'll come to our reading and then in the reflection we won very very important date for canterbury today to consider o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the true the only light banish all darkness from our hearts and minds blessed are you sovereign god creator of all to you be glory and praise forever you founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands in the fullness of time you made us in your image and in these last days you have spoken to us in your son jesus christ the word made flesh as we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us let the light of your love always shine in our hearts your spirit ever renew our lives and your praises ever be on our lips blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 25th morning of the month is a section of the long psalm 119 which you will remember is broken up into eight verse sections and from the 24th evening until the 26th evening we read sections of that psalm well here's the 25th morning and we're reading the section beginning at verse 33 teach me o lord the way of your statutes and i shall keep it to the end give me understanding and i shall keep your law i shall keep it with my whole heart lead me in the path of your commandments for therein is my delight incline my heart to your testimonies and not to unjust gain turn away my eyes lest they gaze on vanities oh give me life in your ways confirm to your servant your promise which stands for all who fear you turn away the reproach which i dread because your judgments are good behold i long for your commandments in your righteousness give me life so we turn to the section of exodus for this morning and we're taking up where we left off on saturday and we come this morning to the ninth of the ten plagues so i'm in chapter 10 of exodus and starting at verse 21. then the lord said to moses stretch out your hand towards heaven that there may be darkness over the land of egypt a darkness to be felt so moses stretched out his hand towards heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of egypt for three days they did not see one another nor did anyone rise from his place for three days but all the people of israel had light where they lived then pharaoh called moses and said go serve the lord your little ones also may go with you only let your flocks and your herds remain behind but moses said you must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to the lord our god our livestock also must go with us not a hoof shall be left behind for we must take of them to serve the lord our god and we do not know with what we must serve the lord until we arrive there but the lord hardened pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go then pharaoh said to moses get away from me take care never to see my face again for on the day you see my face you shall die moses said as you say i will not see your face again a plague of darkness the whole thing in our minds is hardly surprising with all the climatic activity that has been happening with huge plagues of locusts and also with the nile with the activity there the poison and the frogs and the flies and the gnats and it's hardly surprising that a darkness falls over the land we don't know what sort of darkness that was we do know that in terms of any kind of volcanic activity then one can have huge amounts of darkness through which you cannot see i'm not old enough to remember london smogs i think the last of those in a really thick way a dense way was in the very early years of the 1950s but clean air acts helped to send that away but in the autumn whenever a fog descended on london there was a danger that with all the smoke of chimneys and factories adding to it it would become a smog and one can forget the the the idea of mists and ordinary fog because even there you can put your hand out and and see your hand i'm told that in real london smogs the atmosphere was so dense not only with the fog but with all that was in the air mixing with the fog that it was impossible to see anything at all and i remember um the reading biographies of of people like sir edward gray the foreign secretary early in the century saying that they went out and and and walking along bumped into the horse so that they were groping for their way round because they couldn't see at all and this kind of blindness and darkness which has now been visited on egypt once again no doubt pharaoh's tortures are saying to him just let these people go for remember the phrase egypt is ruined but pharaoh is still bargaining bargaining bargaining with moses and in a way bargaining with god in the end the people will go for he doesn't know with whom he is bargaining and he keeps making deceitful promises in as the plagues unfold in the story as everything is handed on to us but it causes us to remember exactly how often in the scriptures light is used as a sign of clarity it also causes us to remember that the very first command of the creator given in the scriptures which when we began the book of genesis was there and god said let there be light and there was light think how when lights suddenly go out maybe in a power cut and you're left in a room that you know very very well indeed how when you stand up simply to walk across a room to get a a candle or something you've got that or a torch that you know you've got there to find the light how strange the room becomes your direction tends to go you bump into objects that you'd forgotten were there and you realize how much you rely entirely on sight i'm going to have we've got winnie in the middle of the table here oh no it's clemmy she's quite a quite a large option going through and uh she didn't bump into that actually you were quite careful there chloe well done um but as you go across the room you suddenly realize how totally lost you are and how much those phrases in of of metaphor and simile which our lord himself uses but the psalmists use all the time and in psalm 119 you have that lovely phrase your word is a lantern to my feet and a light for my path um and in other psalms the lord is my light and my salvation whom then shall i fear light is something we need for movement and life and if light disappears for someone as it had think of yesterday's gospel in the eucharist of blind bartimaeus he had a different kind of sight within him which jesus commended later but at the same time he needed people to help him obey jesus's command when first of all the cries were trying to shut him up when he was crying son of david have mercy on me son of david have mercy on me sitting on the streets of jericho shouting and jesus says bring him to me and the people say to the blind man whom they've known forever begging in the streets um take heart he's calling you but he sprang up but they they need to lead him to where jesus is and yet in the end his inner insight as to whom jesus was and what power he had to give him light was far far clearer than many who for the chapters before had been totally misunderstanding sometimes willfully misunderstanding but in the disciples sake getting everything wrong in terms of glory and life and light and all the things that jesus is trying to give them are the good news but then bartimaeus has his light returned and what does he do with his physical life he follows jesus on the way wonderful phrase and one remembers that the early churches followers of jesus were first called followers of the way following along the way and for that we need light but we need light body mind and spirit and we need both companions and also assistance in all those spheres when we ourselves find ourselves in darkness and that sense of light i am the light of the world says the anointed one to us that the god whom we saw yesterday in our reflection strapping on the breastplate of righteousness to come down and do the work himself and walk in the dangers that we know and and live out the divine qualities within the context of a human life so today we give thanks for light as we remember the pharaoh in thick darkness and it's a darkness for him that is not only real in the physical world but also inwardly he's not perceiving and many of his tortures already have let them go egypt is ruined the ninth play darkness and this lovely phrase darkness that could be felt and one goes back to the london smog physically it could be felt because there was something thick in the air that was poisonous to human life in that way so no one moved from their place until that had passed but blame went on to the hebrews in a different area of egypt where the air was still clear [Music] now i said this is a special day there are there are many dates i could deal with this is the anniversary in 1415 at the battle of agincourt and one remembers remembers henry v's great speech and uh also the the way in which the the english triumphed on that day because of the use of their longbows it's also the day in 1978 that her majesty the queen opened the new anglican cathedral in completion in liverpool it had taken years and years to complete but this was the day that it was open huge cathedral the biggest of all our cathedrals it makes makes uh us feel a little a little bit like lilliputians as you go into liverpool cathedral because it is so big um and then on this day in 1881 uh pablo picasso was born in malaga but we have remembered him recently and there are two dates that really pertain to canterbury i'll deal with the minor one first i don't want to call it minor really because john of salisbury who was a very educated medieval philosopher and became secretary to archbishop theobald and then carried on to be secretary to archbishop thomas beckett and was a huge supporter of beckett and therefore king henry ii saw him as an enemy and a papal envoy but john of salisbury was one of those who was in the building in canterbury cathedral when beckett himself was murdered by the four knights and then later he collected together beckett's correspondence and wrote a biographical account a preface to that so john of salisbury who died on this day in 1180 and by then he was bishop of church and that that lovely cathedral with all its beautiful glass we remember with thanksgiving as we pray today for liverpool cathedral and also for sharks cathedral in its ministry but the big date today is 1400 jeffrey chaucer died on this day known as the father of english literature but also known to us and to the whole world as the writer of the canterbury tales and he began that when he was already a public servant and a director of works and all sorts of things he even became an mp for kent for a little little while but early in the 1380s in kent he began his canterbury tales and this of course is the story of a group of pilgrims a very diverse group of pilgrims who have met at southwark at the tabard inn and among them is jeffrey chaucer so this is a slightly sort of uh semi-autobiographical thing because chaucer himself is one of the pilgrims and will tell his his his tale to entertain them on the way there but at the moment they're all in the taberdin having a a really festive dinner and waiting uh for the pilgrimage to begin the next day and they're there with their host whose name was harry bailey we're told and the host it is who suggests that as they go along they tell stories to entertain one another and we've got people like if i read some of the list there's an awful lot of them a knight a squire a yeoman a prirus a nun's priest a monk a friar a merchant a clerk a sergeant of law a franklin a haberdasher a carpenter a weaver a dyer a tapestry weaver a cook a shipman the doctor of physic a wife a bath a parson a parish priest with his brother who's a plowman a miller a monsible a reeve a summoner a pardoner the host and chaucer himself and they're all going to have a go at telling a story on the way down the tales were never finished but there's an enormous quantity of words in them and their beautiful poetry but of course they're all written in middle english which some people revel in and i've heard people even leaders in african states who had been taught chaucer in their schools have been able to recite in middle english to me the beginning of the prologue and a great friend of ours uh kenneth in in new york is another one who can recite the pro prologue in middle english well i'm not going to do that this morning because for many of us middle english is almost like a foreign language but i am going to read some of these lovely canterbury tales but i wanted to say also that the pictures of each of those characters that we had in our school textbook come from a marvelously iris illustrated uh i don't know that i can reach that far can you sorry um uh a marvelously illustrated uh perhaps i'll move my chair because it seems a bit cruel as she's come to be comforted on this morning yeah i can go here that's good um uh and at the same time i'll keep my eye on the table uh this this this scene is a very good one because of course one of the most famous tales in chaucer is of the chanticleer the cockrell and the pertilot his wife and all the other hens and the widows the widow's garden now russell is outside at the gate there but he's not allowed in at the moment with the hens this morning um but a farmyard scene of the widow's farmyard begins that tale and uh of course you remember that chanticleer has dreams of the fox carrying him away which becomes effective but he is saved and spared and so the story is a lovely one to tell and i've seen it done with cartoons and animation and everything else but i was saying that the elsmere chaucer that lovely lovely book with illustrations is now in the huntington museum at san marino in california that's from from los angeles if you drive up through pasadena you arrive in san marino and there at the hundred year museum their treasures unfold and the gardens there are really so absolutely spectacular there are gardens where plants from different nations in an in an enormous way of of of seeing how all that comes together but it's not the gardens i want to talk about this morning nor anything else other than the ellesmere chaucer because the first time we went there the ellsmere chaucer was on display and opened so it was in a glass case and although we were taken in to see various treasures we couldn't actually see the uh elsmere chaucer because it was there on display but it's only displayed for certain times so the book can rest in the archive the next time we went there it was there in the archive and uh coming from canterbury we were taken down to see it and had the real privilege and pleasure of holding it and turning the pages and finding all those beautiful illustrations which we were used to from our textbooks but there they all were all the characters coming alive and as i read this morning well we remember our friends at the huntington particularly uh melinda and and melissa who have have been such friends since and when we go there it's lovely to go and explore all that but at the same time it's the prologue that we want to think of this morning which is fantastic sorry i'm gonna not forget you as well this is a very true syrian scene so what i've got is i think one of the oh dear i can't reach there as well you just have to let your mother be comforted this morning what i've got here is um the middle english on the way down and those of you who know it and purists then think of the middle english but i'm not reading it in that i'm reading it in what i think is a lovely verse form which reflects the middle english it's set in april well it's not april here but it's not spring here it's autumn but in australia and in new zealand it is spring and in the southern hemisphere it's spring so think of the seasons going around the world and the the life is being engendered to make people want to go on holiday on pilgrimage and have a lovely time on the way here we are this is the beginning in modern english verse when april with his showers sweet with fruit the drought of march has pierced unto the root unbathed each vein with liquor that has power to generate therein and sire the flower when zephyr also has with his sweet breath quickened again in every holton heath the tender shoots and buds and the young sun into the ram one half his course has run and many little birds make melody that sleeps through all the night with open eye so nature pricks them onto rampant rage then do folk long to go on pilgrimage and palmers go to seeking out strange strands to distant shrines well known in sundry lands and especially from every shire's end of england they too canterbury wend the holy blessed martyr there to seek who helped them when they lay so ill and weak befell that in that season on a day in southwark at the tabard as i lay ready to start upon my pilgrimage to canterbury full of devout homage there came at nightfall to that hostelry some nine and twenty in a company of sundry persons who had chance to fall in fellowship and pilgrims were they all that toward canterbury town would ride the rooms and stables spacious were and wide and well we there were eased and of the best and briefly when the sun had gone to rest so i had i spoken with them everyone that i was of their fellowship anon and made agreement that we'd early rise to take the road as you will a prize but nonetheless whilst i have time and space before yet father in this tale i pace it seems to me accordant with reason to inform you of the state of everyone of all these as it appeared to me and who they were and what was their degree and even how arrayed there at the end and with a knight thus will i first begin now if i went to all of them we'd be here all morning but i'll just do a bit of the night and uh this is how he begins to describe the folk the pilgrims a night there was and he a worthy man who from the moment that he first began to ride about the world loved chivalry truth honor freedom and all courtesy for full worthy was he in his liege lord's war and therein had he written none more far as well in christendom as heathenness and honored everywhere for worthiness at alexandria he when it was one full off the table's roster had begun above all nations nights in prussia in latvia raided he and russia no christened man so oft of his degree in granada at the siege was he of al-jazeera's and in belmary at ayus was he and its satellite when they were one and on the middle c at many a noble meeting chance to be of mortal battles he had fought fifteen and he'd fought for our faith that transcene three times in lists and each time slaying his foe this self-same worthy night had been also at one time with the lord of palliative against another heathen in turkey and always won his sovereign fame for prize though so illustrious he was very wise and bore himself as meekly as a maid he never yet had any vileness said in all his life to whatsoever white he was a truly perfect gentle night but now to tell you all of his array his steeds were good but yet he was not gay of simple faustian war here dupont sadly discovered by his habitant for he had lately come from his voyage and now was going on this pilgrimage well on it goes and you get to know each pilgrim before they start and then the tales start and eventually we come to lovely tales like chanticleer and petalot and the widow's farmyard where she has a little small holding and is so proud of things but it's the creatures themselves who tell the story almost because chanticleer says to his wife petalot when peterlot says you seem straight and she says i keep having terrible dreams that a fox is going to carry me away and so the story goes on well all of that this morning we give thanks for the way in which as you read on and on and on whether in middle english or in verse or in some of the translations which are in prose for modern times though i love the sense of the verse because it carries it on in rhythm as you read on and on you you actually are immersed in chaucer's world and his words give you light to find your way at the end of the 14th century when he is writing such a different world and yet at the same time it's as though he is switching lights on everywhere across that world of the people of their faith of what makes them laugh of their humanity of their limitations of their deceit one to another of the different characters and on this day when thick darkness is the image of the plague it's as though the thick darkness is all those hundreds of years ago is being lightened by lamps being put on with every pilgrim being described first of all and then telling their story which is so full of humorous detail and some make you laugh and some make you cry and some make you think but we're being fed body mind and spirit by all those communities that they journey through as they went their way to canterbury and then the intention is to wend their way back for a pilgrimage as the host harry bailey says is not really finished so we come back home and there'll be different stories to tell on the way back well chaucer died before all that was completed and he was the first poet to be buried in westminster abbey in poe's corner but nevertheless he's left us a substantial amount of stories and he certainly left us that wonderful pro prologue where in the ellsmere chaucer you get that beautiful illustration of each one and no better illustration than the illustration of chaucer himself so thanks be to god for all those who give light to us in body mind or spirit that we may find our way and thanks be to god most of all for the gift of his son the light of the world who gives himself always to us in the present tense saying i am the light of the world let's say our prayers then on this day and remember in the anglican communion on this 25th of october the diocese of guildford in the church of england the canterbury province of the church of england and pray for the life of guildford and its cathedral and also we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover and for emma bishop at lambeth and today we're continuing to pray for the parishes found in the elam deanery not too far from here at all a lovely valley the ilam valley uh as you you um go from canterbury along and we'll go throughout the the next few days through the villages of elam but for the moment we're actually giving thanks for all those clergy who mostly in retirement have given time to and they've given permission to officiate and and to help out in all the parishes there it's a list too long to read but we give thanks for them on this day and pray for them and uh so as we do that we use the collect for this week and we began to use it yesterday i realized i got it slightly wrong my memory failing but today i'll try and get it right blessed lord who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning grant that we may in such wise hear them read mark learn and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of your holy word we may embrace an ever-held fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which you have given us in your son our savior jesus christ amen so the prayer our savior taught us each in our own language our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now for your own prayers you all right [Music] [Music] yep uh ah the peace of god which passes all understanding keeps your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men well you can't lie here all day you've got work to do in clearing the ground for us for next year but i think you deserve a little bit of a rest first don't you but winnie is getting on with it now with all the help of the chickens okay welcome to a unique collection of beautiful gardens celebrated art and a remarkable research library [Music] so just how did this place come to be henry huntington was a businessman a very successful businessman he was also a collector of plants art and books lots of books his remarkable collecting became the foundation of this place but let's start at the beginning henry's first visit to southern california was in the spring of 1892 when los angeles was already changing from a small town into a major metropolis the arrival of the cross-country railroad in california brought waves of western migration from across a post-civil war america the railroads marketed southern california as a sunny paradise a place of bountiful resources with limitless opportunities [Music] [Music] on that first visit henry stayed as a guest on the working ranch that was this property with its fragrant air and stately oak trees henry a native of new york was hooked he was on route to san francisco going to work for his uncle the railroad king collis p huntington uncle collis was the wealthy ring leader of the big four owners of the southern and central pacific railroads their fortunes had swelled with completion of the first transcontinental railroad back in 1869. the u.s government had granted extensive land rights and paid thousands of dollars to the railroad companies for every mile of track laid while thousands of railroad workers did the heavy lifting the big four struck the big deals america's gilded age was ushered in creating entire industries that made an ambitious few extremely wealthy as men like andrew carnegie john d rockefeller and carlos huntington made their fortunes it became fashionable and even expected that the wealthy would invest in philanthropic endeavors they created museums universities hospitals and research centers these men also built extravagant homes creating estates as stylish monuments to themselves in san francisco henry settled in with his first wife mary alice and their four children he rose through the ranks of the railroad empire to become his uncle's business protege and confidant when collis huntington died in 1900 the railroad king left behind an amount of wealth that is hard to imagine shares from collis mammoth railroad stocks were divided between his favorite nephew henry and collis's second wife arabella huntington collis had met her 30 years earlier while still married to his first wife elizabeth arabella had one child archer in all likelihood he was collus's son after collis death arabella spent the next few years traveling between her new york and paris apartments she wore her wedding ring and dressed in black for the rest of her life with the settling of the estate a correspondence developed and a relationship deepened between the two heirs arabella spent lavishly in europe on clothing artwork jewelry and furniture the sum total of her purchases brought back from europe in 1902 was the largest amount ever declared by a traveler in the port of new york meanwhile henry turned his attention to southern california with his business partners he incorporated the pacific electric railway company in 1901 the pe or red car system whisked angelinos from downtown los angeles to the quickly expanding suburbs where they could purchase property from one of huntington's own real estate companies envisioning a burgeoning city served by his rail systems he bought up land and invested in power and water the profits rolled in [Music] late in 1903 he bought the peaceful ranch near pasadena where he had stayed as a guest 12 years before with an eye to european estates henry hired young landscape architect william hertrick to transform the property and develop his gardens a staff of laborers was hired to assist in the ambitious construction grading land moving oak trees and planting here in the warm climate of san marino [Music] [Music] with more and more people arriving to the land of sunshine and avocados henry's los angeles investments soared he shifted from being a casual book collector to purchasing entire libraries and became a major buyer in the elite antiquarian book market in 1911 he bought what was then the most expensive book ever sold a gutenberg bible for fifty thousand dollars with his first marriage over henry settled permanently in southern california on this property architects myron hunt and elmer gray were hired to design henry's dream home [Music] henry wrote to arabella about the house they were contemporaries and his fascination with his uncle's widow grew a sophisticated taste maker herself she encouraged henry to begin collecting art enlisting her longtime art dealer joseph devine to decorate the mansion many details of the home were custom crafted in europe they were shipped across the atlantic and crated across the country by private rail right to the estate between 1907 and 1909 henry spent two million dollars on paintings decorations furniture and statuary three years after construction began the huntington mansion was completed in 1911. the press called it huntington's palace after decades of close friendship henry and arabella now in their 60s were married in paris in 1914 as europe entered the first world war they moved into their home here in san marino the huntington's extravagant collecting continued like others who had gained similar fortunes and collections they began to think about their legacy what would they leave behind how would they be remembered with an assembled board of trustees including archer huntington henry and arabella co-signed a deed of trust in 1919 endowing the estate as a research and educational institution to be open to the public upon their deaths shortly after henry's death the huntington opened its doors for the first time following the direction set by its founder the collections have continually grown with some shifts in emphasis including materials related to california and the west and an expanding american art collection [Music] over 700 000 visitors explore the huntington annually including thousands of school children each year more than seventeen hundred scholars glean new insights from the library and art collections their academic pursuits have led to best-selling books acclaimed documentaries school textbooks and literary and historical accolades it's also become an important place of study for botanists looking to protect propagate and distribute plants from around the world a dedicated staff of more than 400 maintain the huntington and care for its collections [Music] welcome to the huntington we're glad you're here [Music] i love you california you're the greatest [Music] [Music] your [Music] [Music] [Music] wherever you go with the huntington there is always something new to discover on your field trip through the gardens you'll see beautiful and unusual plants from around the world follow along as we explore what a botanical garden is and why it's so important [Music] [Music] a botanical garden is a place where we collect plants that are used for study for introduction of new kinds of plants and to teach people about plants you shouldn't forget that plants are the source of all of our food and all of our oxygen without plants we would not even be here so it's useful to be able to stop for a minute and study them and understand them and appreciate them at the huntington as a big botanical garden we have a really awesome collection of plants from all around the world a zoo is a place that collects and cares for animals and a botanical garden is really a similar thing we collect and care for a wide variety of plants from all over the globe this is a garden that really collects plants to show people how you can grow them also to tell the history of the plant for example around the main gallery you'll find some strange looking plants that look little like palms but they're lower and more thorny than most palms and those are cycads and cycads are almost living fossils they were growing back when the dinosaurs were around and the dinosaurs probably munched on them [Music] in southern california in the los angeles area we have relatively speaking a really mild climate and there's plants that just don't like it outside despite our glorious weather and that's why we have the conservatory it's a controlled environment that is high humidity and a relatively high temperature usually above 85 degrees and we have a very famous plant called the amorphophallus titanum which is also known as the big stinky plant and it grows up to 10 feet tall and has a terrible terrible odor and it has this particularly awful smell to attract different pollinators to it so that it can successfully reproduce our conservatory is an environment where it can grow as it would in its natural habitat [Music] the advantage we have with the living collections at the huntington over the art or the library is that we can propagate them so we have the ability to propagate plants that are endangered in the wild and thereby conserve them the golden barrel for example is a plant that's more common in cultivation than it is in the wild but in the wild it's been endangered by dams and reservoir construction so now they're grown by the millions in nurseries we have lots of different species of succulents but within a species there's variation too just like people have brown eyes or blue eyes plants can have different flower colors for example so you could select a particular flower color and by breeding it back with others develop a strain with all that flower color [Music] the shakespeare garden was conceived as a way of displaying the plants of shakespeare the idea was to sort of tie the garden to the library because we have a fabulous collection of early shakespeare printed books there are collections of roses for example that have strong ties to english history and literature we have the ellesmere chaucer well we have rose's name for many of the chaucer characters there are roses in here that were grown in napoleon's wife's garden there's a rose we just planted out here lady emma hamilton where she was a friend of admiral nelson who was a big part of winning the war against the french [Music] when you come to the huntington as you're walking around you'll notice that all the plants look really different and they look different because they've adapted to the different environments where they come from so in the desert garden you notice a lot of very succulent plants with thick leaves and they often have different types of adaptations to protect themselves from birds and animals that want to get at their very very precious water the plant we're looking at is an aloe both these kinds of aloes have leaves arranged in rosettes that is they're kind of like the petals of a rose that overlap and the advantage of that for a plant that lives in a dry environment is that when water is available it gets funneled down towards the center of the plant where the roots can collect it so the rosette growth form is an adaptation to a dry environment when you're in the jungle garden you'll notice the really enormous ficus trees overhead and if you look up you will see that they have long aerial roots that are hanging down off their branches and that is something that they've developed over time to absorb water and nutrients out of the very very humid air that is part of the habitat where they come from [Music] i will have to say there's some great plants in this garden and one that i wish you would go look at we have down in the desert garden these huge golden barrel cacti and each one is maybe two feet across we planted those from seed 100 years ago and if we're lucky they'll be here 100 years from now and they'll be even bigger and more magnificent that's pretty cool every plant in this garden has a story and every story natural history or even human-made history about that plant is fascinating come and explore the world of plants but also find out more about the world [Music] you