Go to Home Page
Introductory Annuals Mary Garden
Introducing
the
Flowers of Our Lady
and
Mary Gardens
of medieval tradition
For cultivation today by faithful stewards as
works of veneration and prayer at:
Homes
Schools
Parishes
Institutions
Convents
Monasteries
Shrines
Your Mary Garden
Start a Mary Garden.... Or, add Flowers of Our Lady to your
present garden.... Have an outdoor shrine. Or be the giver of such
means to a person or family, society, school or religious
institution.
Your Mary Garden may be started with easy to grow annuals
Flowers of Our Lady purchased from garden stores, roadside stands or
nurseries as a:
- Patio Container Mary Garden
- Niche Mary Garden in a corner of an existing garden
- Small Mary Garden
Or plants for such Mary Gardens may be started from seed sown
directly in the garden after the danger of frost is past in the
spring; or started in seed trays indoors 4 to 6 weeks early indoors
and then transplanted to the garden outdoors.
In following years biennial and perennial Flowers of Our Lady
may be added.
1.
Inspiration
The Mary Garden is an act of faith.
It is first of all a picturing in your imagination of its
Flowers of Our Lady - named as symbols of the Blessed Virgin in
medieval times - with loving reflection on their meanings.
That garden is an appeal to the heart. May it be that as you
envisage the Flowers of Our Lady they bloom spiritually within
your interior life.
Then, with your garden stewardship, foliage, buds and blooms
will come of God's creatures the seeds, in due season and according
to his established order - in veneration of the Blessed Virgin, and
quickening recourse to her in meditation and prayer.
12 Flower Meditations
2.
The Flowers of Our Lady
Suggested Annual Flowers of Our Lady for your beginning Mary Garden
Cornflower - Mary's Crown
Forget-me-not* - Eyes of Mary
Impatiens* - Mother Love
Larkspur - Mary's Tears
Marigold* - Mary's Gold
Morning Glory - Our Lady's Mantle
Petunia* - Our Lady's Praises
Poppy - Christ's Blood
Snapdragon - Infant Jesus' Shoes
Sweet Alyssum* - Flower of the Cross
Sweet Scabious - Mary's Pincushion
Zinnia - The Virgin
* Low flowers, for container Mary Gardens.
Photos copyright 1992-1997 FLOWERscape garden design software,
by Richard H. Kline - All rights reserved
3.
.
4.
5.
Mary Garden Care
Choose a location for your garden that has at least 5 hours a
day of sun.
Prepare the garden soil with sand to make it porous for deep
penetration of water and air; humus to make it spongy to retain
water; and fertilizer to nourish plant growth.
After planting, firm soil around plant roots; water; then shade
several days to prevent wilting.
Sprinkle garden with as much water as soil will absorb without
forming puddles. Allow some drying from the top down to induce deep
root growth and to draw in fresh air needed for soil processes and
root vigor. Then re-water thoroughly, etc.
Remove any spent blooms and weeds, and loosen soil with a
cultivating fork if it becomes packed.
For container Mary Gardens, trim the plants back to keep their
blooms low.
6.
Mary Garden History
The Flowers of Our Lady were devotionally named as symbols of
the life, virtues and mysteries of the Blessed Virgin and her Divine
Son in the oral traditions of the medieval countrysides -
circulated by itinerate preachers, mendicant friars, wandering
minstrels, roving players, pilgrims, merchants, missionaries and
other travelers.
The old religious names, largely omitted from early gardening
books, were recorded later through the research of botanists and
folklorists in the various countries and regions - serving to
preserve them and bring them down to the present day.
In our modern Information Age, these old flower names are being
circulated again: now through the print media, and electronically
via the Internet throughout the entire world - from which devoted
individuals learn of them and spread the custom of growing them in
their parishes.
7.
A Mary Garden Prayer
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
As our hearts are raised to you in love and thanksgiving through the
light, grace, fragrance and symbolism of these pure, blest,
transfigured flowers of Our Lady - your direct creations, showing
forth and sharing with us your divine goodness, beauty and truth -
we commune with you in awe and rapture and pray that we and all our
brothers and sisters may be opened to the fullness of the divine
love of God and Neighbor, through which we are to transform the
fallen world into the culminating earthly Peaceable Kingdom and
Paradise, that all may be lifted up resplendent in the eternal New
Heaven and New Earth of our Crucified and Risen Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
Amen
(For accompanying Litany of Garden Saints, see Mary's Gardens
Internet web site homepage.)
8.
For More Information
To learn more about the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens,
see the Mary's Gardens homepage on the Internet at:
http://www.mgardens.org
Here you will find:
- Introductory Slide Lecture
- Flower and Garden photos
- Informative and inspirational articles
- Research and Documentation
- Lists of hundreds of Flowers and Plants
- Mail order sources of seeds, bulbs, plants
- Plant Selection and Garden Design aids
- Full Gardening Instructions
- Indoor Dish & Windowsill Mary Gardens
- Garden Blessings and Prayers
- New postings each month
- This Booklet - for printing copies
Email address: marysgardens@mgardens.org
9.
Gardens Give Mary Glory
These are the loveliest of her litanies,
These are gardens where the glad abounding earth
Still gush the Holy Spirit's primal mirth
In endlessly renewed diversities
These from the faithful and fecund soil
Are generations that have called her blest,
They magnify her always without rest
While man's sad cyclic ages still uncoil.
They beat the perfumed air with noiseless sound,
They ring out her renown, freshly repeat
Her names taught them by men whose pulses beat
With God's great rhythm of the Seasons' round.
Each garden gives her glory, chants her praise
Even in harsh and hostile places where
Men have forgotten gentleness and prayer,
And what still canticles waft through their days.
Who plants a garden builds a carillon
To peal her praises with the pulse of time,
And laud her with the earth's loveliest, lasting chime
In bright, unalterable antiphon.
- Liam Brophy, 1961
Copyright Mary's Gardens 1951-1998