Why would one ever start a gardening column with a quote from Shakespeare? Because there is a gardening conundrum embedded in this column.

Like many Americans, I was introduced to Shakespeare in high school. We had an amazing English teacher in 12th grade who had us read and act out “King Lear,” and at several points in our year-long journey through this masterpiece the teacher climbed on a table in our classroom and threatened to throw himself out the window in despair. I cannot remember — was he reenacting Lear’s madness on the heath, or was he suggesting that our ignorance translated into a form of cruelty toward him paralleling Lear's children’s cruelty toward him?

My slightly unorthodox introduction to Shakespeare — usually people start with “Romeo and Juliet” in high school — was followed by “Julius Caesar” and “Macbeth” in college, both for their historical stories and the time periods they represented, as well as for their exposure of the dangers of tyrannical governments. Dangerous times indeed.

Then Shakespeare left my life for many years and reentered it when there was a spate of books stating that Shakespeare couldn’t possibly have been the Shakespeare we’ve come to know. Instead, they proposed that Shakespeare was this person or that person, but he wasn’t this poor, undereducated kid from Stratford-upon-Avon. He couldn’t be. He was a genius, after all.

As my mother continually reminds me, human genius comes from every continent, in every human population, speaking every language, and every creed and skin color. Genius is unbiased as to where it crops up.

Then came a spate of books, one by Bill Bryson called “Shakespeare” and another called “Will in the World” by Stephen Greenblatt, that proved that Shakespeare was indeed Shakespeare. There’s a follow-up volume by Greenblatt called “Dark Renaissance” that focuses not on Shakespeare, but on Christopher (Kit) Marlowe, who probably was murdered when he was 29 years old.

In between the publication of all of these books, I had the good fortune of visiting Stratford-upon-Avon and seeing many different performances of Shakespeare plays, some by amateurs, others by celebrated actors. I have been charmed by a BBC series called “Upstart Crow,” which is a humorous but nonetheless fascinating take on Shakespeare’s home life.

The public fascination with Shakespeare continues. There is a recent movie called “Hamnet” about Shakespeare’s only son, who died of the plague at age 11. My husband really enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it less. I saw and heard many things that made me question the person who was hired to check the historical details. I would also say that the movie was far more about Anne Hathaway than about her son.

Now I must digress. I do not read Shakespeare for fun. It’s too difficult for me. My reading these days is more rom-coms and murder mysteries.

I adore British murder mysteries. I especially like Agatha Christie. I don’t need to see blood and gore. I love to see the country houses, their gardens, the costumes, the horses, the family dramas, the jewelry, the cars, and the landscapes. I am particularly fond of climbing roses, clematis, and clumps of lavender. I especially pay attention to the landscapes and the gardens being shown. So, now back to Shakespeare.

The movie “Hamnet” had all of these above-mentioned elements in it. Well, not the cars. However, there is a particular scene, and I’m sure it was supposed to be focused on Anne, or Will, or someone else, but what caught and held my attention was a most beautiful clump of “daisies.” Only they weren’t daisies. They were echinacea. Look for the droop of the petals and the raised golden cone at the center. They weren’t just any echinacea. They were Echinacea White Swan. It’s a gorgeous variation of purple coneflower.

The mystery for me is: How could Echinacea White Swan be growing in Shakespeare’s garden after Hamnet’s death, sometime in the mid-1590s, when it was developed in the UK in 1987 by the Thompson & Morgan Seed Company?

Aha! There, you see, is the $64,000 garden question in this column.