Quod Severis Metes Bench

With the initial planting of the Rose Garden completed, the Blisses installed a serpentine stone bench along the eastern perimeter of the garden room in 1932. Over the next three years, Beatrix Farrand and Mildred Bliss worked on designing the inscription tablet with the Bliss motto under their wheat sheaf crest. The motto, “Quod Severis Metes” (As ye sow, so shall ye reap), dates at least to the eighteenth century, where it was found on the gravestone of Philip Bliss in England in 1714.

Originally, the bench was designed with two sculpted dogs at either end, but these ornaments were replaced by obelisks in 1941. Those obelisks were subsequently replaced with larger ones in 1952, under the supervision of Don Smith, then superintendent of gardens and grounds. The bench serves both as a resting place to sit and take in the beautiful plantings of the Rose Garden, but also as a vantage point looking down on the garden rooms below as they terrace downward to Lovers’ Lane Pool and the border with Rock Creek Park.

Image: Unknown photographer, 2000