“Mary had stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails, and more suddenly still she jumped towards it and caught it in her hand. This she did because she had seen something under it – a round knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it. It was the knob of a door.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, 1911

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) loved to tell and act out stories throughout her childhood, both in England, where she was born, and in the United States, where her family moved in 1865. As soon as Frances discovered that she could write stories and get them published, that is how she supported herself and her family for the rest of her life. She published her first story when she was eighteen, and went on to write many more stories, plays, and more than fifty novels. The most famous of these, The Secret Garden, was inspired by the gardens at Great Maytham Hall in Kent, where she lived off and on between 1898 and 1907. In The Secret Garden a lonely orphan, Mary Lennox, is sent to live at Misselthwaite Manor, home of an uncle she never knew. There she discovers that learning to care for things outside of herself—a robin, a garden, another child—makes her both healthier and happier.

It is a robin that leads Mary Lennox to her discovery of the secret garden, but the bird Mary knows as a robin is not the same bird we call a robin here in the United States! In fact, they are completely different species of bird. They both belong to the order of songbird, but a European robin is a type of flycatcher, while American robins are a type of thrush. You can learn more about European and American Robins.

You can hear the song of the European Robin!

Scavenger hunt for flowers that Mary encounters in the secret garden—you can find many of these here in The Botanic Garden.

• Standard roses
• Climbing roses
• Crocus
• Snowdrops
• Narcissus
• Daffodils