The Merchant of Venice

Designed by

Michelle Duxbury

Built by

National Diploma Horticulture students from Capel Manor College, The Linepost Company

Web

www.capel.ac.uk

Michelle Duxbury has been inspired by Shakespeare’s comic tale of love and money in creating this design. The garden’s setting is a Venetian canal enclosed by a boardwalk of weathered pilings.

Three large wooden vessels float like gondolas amidst dark, reflective pools and a swirling sea of grasses. Filled with lush flowers and foliage in shades of gold, silver and lead, the vessels depict the caskets from which Portia’s suitors must choose in order to win her hand.

High above the garden, like washing lines spanning a Venetian canal, three tall striped props support drapes of muslin, each one inscribed with Shakespeare’s words of guidance to all would-be suitors.