(Archival) U.K Mary's Gardens Center Established
- Briefly

Sr. Lynn Marie, OCD, Carmelite Monastery, Quidenham,
Norfolk NR16 2PH, ENGLAND

17 May 1997

Just to let you know that Mary's Gardens, UK has successfully
begun.  We have had several articles in The Scottish Catholic
Observer and The Catholic Herald

The editor of The Catholic Herald, Miss Deborah Jones is very
supportive and has begun her own small Mary Garden in London.
To date we have received letters from around the country, both
Catholic and Anglican.

Will try to keep you informed about our progress.

In November I will be able to move to a hermitage on the grounds
of the Carmelite Monastery in Quidenham where I hope we can have a
permanent Mary Garden for East Anglia.  We are not far from the
shrine in Walsingham.

Blessed Pentecost!


20 May 1997, Reply, John Stokes, Mary's Gardens

Thank you for your most welcome message of March 17th.

Your report that "Mary's Gardens, UK has successfully begun" has
more of a prophetic ring for us than you may realize.

Frances Crane Lillie stated in her plant list leaflet of 1937 for
the first U.S. public Mary Garden, founded by her at the Angelus
Tower of St. Joseph's Church in Woods Hole in 1932, that "Our
inspiration of course came from Catholic England."

Of 35 Flowers of Our Lady listed in Mrs.Lillie's original, 1932
plant list leaflet, we found that 33 were described in the small
book, "The Mary Calendar",  by Judith Smith, "printed by hand" at
St. Dominic's Press, Ditchling in 1930 - of which Mrs. Lillie's
copy (which we have in our archives) was No. 34 of 240. This
charming book, based on the bloom sequence of Mary-named English
wild flowers is illustrated with some sixteen wood-engravings by
M. Dudley Short.  The two Mary-flowers in Mrs.Lillie's original
list not included in the book were Madonna Lilies and Marigolds -
not English wildflowers. In our one visit with Mrs. Lillie in
1957, shortly before her death (on Candlemas of 1958) she, from
her failing memory, was able to tell us only that she learned of
the Flowers of Our Lady "from English monastery gardens".

Two other sources of profound inspiration for us - gifts in 1953
from Martha Foster Stearns, Editor of The Herbarist of The Herb
Society of America - were five Flowers of Our Lady holy cards
published in England  by the Medeci Press. which appears to no
longer be in existence - apparently as part of a longer series
(see "Flower Cards", very recently added to our Mary's Gardens
Internet web site, under "Overview"); and "Our Lady's Kalendar",
for several years,  with Flowers of Our Lady illustrations and
legends, by artist, Katherine Pinchard, of "St Raphaels"
(apparently a retirement home), with whom we corresponded in the
1950's when she was in her 80's (we don't have her address at
hand).

These three sources of inspiration, plus the plant listings and
commentary under "Lady" in the full Oxford English Dictionary;
Britten & Holland's "Dictionary of English Plant Names"; and
Geoffrey Grigson's An Englishman's Flora all convince us that
there must be strong undercurrents for "Mary Gardens in the U.K",
even though to our knowlege they haven't surfaced in a
contemporary practice of actually planting such gardens.  Another
important work is Oxford scholar, Alfred E. P. Dowling's Plants
of the Sacred Nativity, London, 1900, which we didn't come upon
until the 1970's or '80's, so that it was for us more of a
retroactive inspiration.  We quote from the introductory chapter
of this book, Sacred Flora under Overview/"The Richness of
Medieval Plant Symbolism Today" on our web site.

I mention all this because of the obvious question of why, with
all this tradition of the Flowers of Our Lady in the U.K., there
is seemingly no visible custom of planting such gardens there
today. .

The only actual present-day Mary Garden in the U.K. of which we
know (aside, now, from those you mention) is the cloister bed
planting at Lincoln Anglican Cathedral in York (photo,
illustration, description and plant list posted to our web site
under "Representative Mary Gardens/ Cloister Mary Garden"),
planted by the late John Codrington of the Lincoln Herb Society,
whose descriptive leaflet we reproduce.  Several inquiries
directed by us to York have yielded no replies.  We don't know
whether Codrington's work was occasioned by our work, or
independently inspired (as it sounds from his leaflet).  The photo
of the Lincoln cloister was taken several years ago by one of my
daughters during a brief visit.

Most pertinent perhaps for Scotland is the description in Rosetta
Clarkson's Green Enchantment, in the chapter "A Monastery
Garden" of a pre-Reformation Mary Garden at Melrose Abbey (which
we believe to be imaginative, based on historical mention,
referred to by Richardson Wright in The Story of Gardening (?),
of an investigation of Melrose Abbey by the general chapter of the
Cistertian Order in Citeaux, France, of the charge that the monks
there had numerous private gardens, in violation of the vow of
poverty.  An inquiry directed by us to the Melrose historical
office received a reply that they had no record of such gardens
(or any gardens).  Then there is the mention of "S. Mary's Garden"
in the pre-Reformation accounting records of Norwich Priory, which
one author of a book on Medieval English gardens with whom we
corresponded believed to be a rose garden, in the tradition of St.
Benedict.

I mention all this with the conjecture that with the English
Reformation rural parish and monastic religious culture was
suppressed (as described, for example, in The Stripping of the
Altars, Yale University Press, I forget the name of the author)
such that there were no more village processions etc. on major
feastdays with all their derivative and supportive customs, nature
symbols, legends etc. of oral tradition, which in a generation or
two evidently largely died out.  Concurrently, with the
introduction of printing about that time, the printed herbals and
gardening books all proclaimed and abided by the stricture of "no
popery and no knavery" in gardening.  Thus, the few old Mary names
of flowers which survived in the prevailing culture were in
modified form (as "Ladies" this or that), or in a folk context
such as Shakespeare's " Mary-buds" and "Lady-smocks"; and those we
now have are mostly not from popular culture but from the
scientific field work of botanists and folklorists.

While the Flowers of Our Lady have had a degree of acceptance
simply as such in the U.S., where there is a predominantly secular
melieu in gardening but no deep-rooted custom to the contrary, in
the U.K., there has been seemingly a cultural block, and even
Codrington's rationale at York is one of preserving an historical
curiosity, rather than a recognition of a significant contribution
of nature to religious culture and popular tradition which might
be worthy of restoration.  So, in a sense, in respect to the U.K.,
we at Mary's Gardens can be said to have been making bold to
undertake an historical reversal.

However, these are different times, and perhaps a moment of
acceptance has now come, as indicated by the letters you have
received from around the country.

What is ultimately in question is the proposition that God created
the world to show forth and share the divine goodness with us
humans, created to this end, in the divine image and likeness,
male and female - and that nature is to be treasured as part of
this showing forth and sharing.  In this it is affirmed that the
world of nature and the spiritual world of heart, mind, soul,
angels and heaven have an intrinsic correspondence within the
unity of their mutual creation through the Divine Word of God,
through whom all things were made - a unity of correspondences
which is the basis of the expression of spiritual values though
the nature images and figures of poetry and the nature symbols of
religion, including, for us, discerned religious flower symbols.

As an aside, it is to be noted that Wordsworth and the English
Romantic Poets undertook to discover the religious meaning of
nature through a poetic examination of nature in itself (an
implicit continuation of the rejection of much pre-reformation
nature symbolism derived from religious tradition), but in the
end, as Coleridge put it, came to the conclusion that what
religious meaning is to be found in nature is ultimately what is
put into it.

I mention all this because it sets forth, as I see it, the broader
challege of promoting Mary-Gardening in the U.K. - even though the
cultural dynamics prone to block it are largely underground and
unconscious.

What we hope for is that one or more persons in the U.K (and all
countries) will be personally moved, with permissive or supportive
circumstances of life, to undertake, as an informal "Mary Garden
Associate", a personal commitment to the work of spreading
Mary-Garden devotion - augmenting our beginnings with local
personal research and missionary work.

There is much to be done in the U.K. to pull together all the
loose ends I have mentioned above, and the many others which
surely exist, and I hope that through the pioneering work of
yourself, Miss Deborah Jones, and others some such person or
persons will emerge to undertake this, for which we offer
extensive cooperation and support.

For May I put up on our web site information about such a Mary
Garden Associate in the U.S., the late Bonnie Roberson, under
"Mary Gardener of Love". And for June I will put up parallel
information about our Irish Mary Garden Associate, Bro. Sean
MacNamara,C.F.C., of the Christian Brothers, Dublin, whose work
has born fruit in the public Mary Gardens at the Knock Shrine of
Our Lady and the Oratory of the Resurrection in Dublin - although
he is very much "ahead of the curve"  because the Celtic Catholic
nature tradition of Saints Patrick, Columban, Fiacre etc. has been
historically overlaid by continental Catholicism in Ireland - in a
way which is somewhat parallel to the situation in the U.K..


In my own two personal brief visits to England (in 1972 and 1983)
I was not able to attempt to track any of this down "on location",
although I did visit Kew Gardens and took lots of photos - also
photos of wayside flowers, such as Lady Smocks, as we drove
around.  Also, I visited Stonehenge, during the lunch break of a
business meeting there.  On a day visit to Oxford, I was delighted
to find engraved over the building doorway of the Barclay's Bank
branch at the main intersection there the name, "Marigold House."
(Have you noticed "Marigold Windows" in the OED?)  Also, I noted
lots of purple loosestrife (Christ's Blood Drops) in bloom in the
grass around the Oxford Campus (of a somewhat more pink hue than
the fields of this flower in the U.S.), and found several good
books on St. Anselm at the bookstore there.

I do follow four or five of the English gardening magazines, and
was interested to note an article, "The Spirit of Plants" by David
Hurrian on p. 103-105 of the March, 1997, issue of Your Garden
magazine, which dealt with plants of religious tradition, but,
again, more as curiosities.  (I wrote the editors of this
magazine, suggesting that they have one of their writers pay a
visit to our web site.)

Another loose end: we have read of the tour of "relics of Our
Lady" from the Holy Land in England in the 12th century,
accompanied by many miracles, and conjecture that the Slipper
Chapel at Walsingham was originally so named not because pilgrims
took off their shoes there for the final walk to the main shrine,
but because a relic, "Our Lady's Slipper", was reserved there.  I
have emailed several people at Walsingham, one of whom replied in
agreement with my suggestion that the Slipper Chapel name was of
other origin, but gave a proposed very arcane suggestion, based on
language - which I could retrieve from my archives and send you
when you get to the Walsingham area, if you wish.

Also, I wrote one article, "Flowers of the Virgin Mary", on
request, for AVE, a publication of the Anglican Society of Mary,
listed under "Developmental Articles" on the web site, in which I
expressed our hope for the planting of Mary Gardens in England
(and the UK), quoting the poem,"The Marigold" beautifully
expressing this yearning.  Horast Keast, who had written many
articles for AVE about rediscovered ruins of pre-Reformation
Marian shrines, evidenced some interest in our work and wrote
several articles on the Marian symbolism of the lily and the rose,
but I did not contact him personally before he died four or five
years ago.

My, this turned out to be a long response to your message, Sister
- pouring out spontaneously because it has all been simmering in
the back of my mind as I write about the situation in Ireland.

Thanks, again, for your valued communication, and do let me hear
from you in the future. Also, we are always interested in flower
and garden photos. (Are you set up to receive and send digitized
photos as e-mail attachments?).

Also, can you send us copies of any U.K. press clippings regarding
the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens for our archival press
file?  Our postal address: Mary's Gardens, Box 30290,
Philadelphia, PA 19103  U.S.A.


8 Jun 1997, John Stokes

As a follow-up of my message of May 20th, here is our announcement
(less color graphics, which I can send you as email gif file
attachments, if you are set up to recive same) regarding our
Internet web site posting on the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens in Ireland, which I mentioned I was working on.

I would appreciate the courtesy of a forward to the editor of The
Catholic Herald, Miss Deborah Jones, whom you mentioned (and to
any other publications you might think appropriate).

Ask Miss Jones if she would be willing to send us an email address
to which we could sent her such announcements directly in the
future?

Many thanks.


12 Jun 1997, John Stokes

In reviewing some old correspondence, I came across the following
in a 1981 letter from Mrs. Joan Lancaster, Book Service Secretary
of The Flower Arranger Magazine (which published the
illustration and plant description pamphlet for the Flowers of Our
Lady collection at the cloister of Lincoln Cathedral - reproduced
under "Cloister Mary Gardens" on our Mary's Gardens Internet web
site>:

"St. Mary's Church at Bowden, County Cheshire, has made a start on
a Plants of the Virgin Mary Garden.  Mrs. Jean Taylor, a former
editor of The Flower Arranger who died very tragically, had
connections with the church and a statue was taken from her own
garden to the churchyard after her death.  The present Chairman of
The Editorial Board, Mrs. Dorothy Berisford, is a parishioner and
she has organized the idea of the garden in memory of Jean."

The Flower Arranger subsequently published an article, "The Mary
Garden of Old" in their Winter, 1984 issue.

I hope to hear from you or Miss Deborah Jones regarding tear
sheets or photo copies of the Mary Garden promotional articles you
mentioned.


15 Jun 1997, Sr. Lynn Marie

The address for the Catholic Herald is:

catholic@atlas.co.uk

The editor is Miss Deborah Jones
Herald House
Lambs Passage
Bunhill Row
London  EC1Y 8TQ


16 Jun 1997, John Stokes to Deborah Jones

We recently were delighted to receive an e-mail message from Sr.
Lynn Marie telling of the new generation of interest in the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in the UK, and in particular
of the articles which have appeared in The Catholic Herald and
The Scottish Catholic Observer and also of a small Mary Garden
you have started in London.

This was very heart-warming for us, as our original inspiration
for the work of Mary's Gardens U.S.A., the Garden of Our Lady at
St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, founded by Frances
Crane Lillie in 1932, was in turn inspired by English sources, and
in particular The Mary Calendar by Judith Smith, "printed by
hand" at St. Dominic's Press, Ditchling in 1930.

And especially heart-warming because in the 46 years of our work,
while there have been a number of UK reprintings of US articles,
and also original articles in The Flower Arranger, and in AVE
of the Anglican, Society of Mary, no one has come forward in the
UK up to now actively to inspire and assist in the planting of
Mary Gardens, other than the late John Codgrington, of the Lincoln
Herb Society, who planted the historical collection of Flowers of
Our Lady in the cloister garden of Lincoln Cathedral in
Lincolshire - although we have been unable to learn anything of
the sources and circumstances of his interest, or even the date of
his planting.

We sent Sr. Lynn Marie a rather extensive summary of our UK
sources and contacts, and asked her for your email address so we
can send you a copy of the same as editorial background.  If you
will be good enough to acknowledge that we have reached you OK, we
will send it on.

Also, we have kept a fairly complete Mary's Gardens press file
through the years.  Could you send us tear sheets or photo copies
of the Catholic Herald and The Scottish Catholic Observer
articles, and also of any future articles in these publictions or
elsewhere?

We assume you have access to our Mary's Gardens Internet Web Site
at http://www.mgardens.org, where we have available articles
written through the years, research documentation, flower and
garden photos, flower lists, sources for seeds and plants, etc. -
a rather complete assembly of our materials and background
information.

Hoping to hear from you soon, so we can send on the UK
information, and with all good wishes for your Mary Garden

Postal Address:

     Mary's Gardens
     Box 30290
     Philadelphia, PA 19103
     USA


16 Jul 1997, John Stokes to Deborah Jones

Thank you for the copy of "Flowers for the Queen of the May" from
the Catholic Herald for 16/5/97.§


16 Jul 1997, John Stokes to Sr. Lynn Marie

We note in "Flowers for the Queen of the May" from the Catholic
Herald for 16/5/97, which we just received, that your address
(postal and email) is given from which your offer to answer
requests for Mary Garden plant lists, starter kits of seeds,
information and planting instructions.

We are most appreciative of the public commitment you have made to
this, and apologize for not grasping the extent of it from your
previous messages.  Mary Gardening has indeed been started in the
UK.

For our August 1st "NEW" on our web site we plan to put up a
rather extensive posting on The Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens in the UK, of proportions similar that put up for Ireland
for June.  May we refer to you as our Associate and give your name
and address as a UK source from which assistance may be obtained?
This would would give a marvellous concreteness to the start.  And
if your garden can be visited at some point, or some other
garden(s), this could then be mentioned also.

I hope so.  One of the things we have been impressed with is how
evidently Mary Gardens were not started after the publication of
Dowling's Flora of the Sacred Nativity in 1900. My conjecture is
that this was so because, while Dowling speaks of planting gardens
of flowers of old religious association in "Sacred Gardens", he
did not concretely propose the planting of such flowers around a
focal figure of Our Lady as a devotional work.  While Dowling is
listed as an Oxford scholar, an Internet search of the Oxford
College library listings failed to turn up his book.  The book
states that other books on the the flora of liturgical seasons
were planned, and also one on the flora of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, but apparently they were never published.  I have obtained
the mail address of his publisher, still in business, and plan to
inquire if they know of any unpublished manuscripts which might be
archived somewhere.

With this in mind, we propose to quote exensively (20 pages or so)
from his book; in fact we have it scanned and ready to go, if you
would like an advanced copy.

You mentioned you expected to be in a new location in the fall.
If agreeable, what address should we use on August 1st?  A web
page address can be changed in a minute, so we could use your
present address, and then change it as appropriate.

Also, are there any ways in which we can be of practical
assistance to you?  Let us know anything that would be helpful.


20 Jul 1997 Sr. Lynn Marie

If you wish to print any address it should be: 

Carmelite Monastery, 
Quidenham, 
Norfolk  NR16 2PH

Anyone is free to visit the monastery; however we do not have
specific Mary Gardens.  Our gardening situation is, perhaps,
somewhat different from yours in the States or at the shrine in
Knock.  We have had some queries from people in Walsingham and
this would be the best place for a similar planting such as is in
Knock.  I will need to gradually build the confidence of our
members so that we can progress.  At the moment I have more
interest from the Anglo-Catholic (Anglican) community than from
the Catholic community although there is quite a bit of interest
in Scotland and the North, the North being a stronghold for
Catholicism for hundreds of years.

I am a solitary attached to the monastery of Discalced Carmelite
Nuns, i.e. OCD

I have recently made my solemn commitment to a more eremitical way
of life which means that I am much more tied to the monastery.  I
spent twenty years working as a missionary (in Taiwan) before
transferring to the Carmelites and now have made a more specific
dedication to live the original spirit of Carmel in its solitary
nature (hermit).

I will try to keep up the work with Mary's Gardens but will need
to depend more on the  help of other members keen to do some of
the personal contact work.  My work in the monastery is with the
gardens but involves much in the kitchen garden at this time of
the year.

Please do not despair that things are not moving very quickly.  We
are trying to build a solid foundation but this takes time.  We
British tend to be skeptics by nature but a sure way to the
English heart is through our garden so we will gradually make
Mary's Gardens better known.  This being the hundredth anniversary
of the re-dedication of the Catholic Shrine in Walsingham may see
things move forward.  Our bishop is also quite supportive
so...next year at this time we may have even more to share with
you.

The address given in the Catholic Herald was temporary until my
hermitage was finished.  Now, please direct all correspondence to
the monastery.


20 Jul 1997, John Stokes

Thank you for the extensive reply to my message of July 16th.

It is a joy to learn of your solemn commitment to a more
eremitical way of life - for which I extend all prayerful best
wishes.  I recall Thomas Merton's spiritual election to this life,
and his wait for the permission of his superiors, to make such a
commitment at Our Lady of Gethsamami Trappist Monastery in
Kentucky. I have read his Journal as the volumes have been
published (as well as all his other books as they came out,
starting with the Seven Storey Mountain), and for a year or so,
before time constraints required that I limit myself to Mary's
Gardens email, I participated actively in the Merton-L email
listserv community - which together with other listservs,
including the large Anglican one, helped me to get up to speed
with the Catholic community, after a somewhat "hidden" life of my
own for a number of years - except for in depth correspondence re.
the Woods Hole, Ireland and Annapolis Mary Gardens. (Have you seen
our valued note from Thomas Merton (Fr. Louis) on our web site
under "Testimonials"?  Also, have you accessed our leaflet under
Representative Mary Gardens/Mary Garden of Remembrance, which
culminates with a St. John of the Cross quote?  In our Mary
Garden Prayer we invoke St. John of the Cross as "Poet of the
Spiritual Countryside of the Soul's Mystical Journey of Love".  My
spiritual director in the 1950's and '60's was professor of
ascetic/mystical theology at the Phila. Archdiocesan Seminary,
and director/confessor for several cloistered communities - all by
way of saying why it is indeed a joy to me to learn of your
commitment, with a "harmonic" of Mary Gardening.  Another
associate, who was responsible for getting things started in
Ireland in 1953, was a Carthusian eremitic, with his cell and
garden, until he was forced out by tuberculosis).

Yes, I will be pleased to use your new address.  For
clarification: should you be addressed personally there although
the arrangement might be that others would do some or most of the
actual responding for Mary's Gardens?  Or should the address
perhaps be to "Mary's Gardens" c/o the Monastery?  I would hope it
would continue to be possible to address you personally, as a
personal commitment and accessibility has been the key to our
mission.  Should some initials, indicating your Order, be used
after your name?

Will you be able to continue your email correspondence and access
to the Web under these new circumstances?  (I should certainly
hope so, and see no contradiction here, especially in view of
Vatican II's requirement that even the most eremitically
cloistered religious maintain some sort of feedback, input into,
and interaction with, the world.  Actually email and the web
provide a marvellous way for this to be accomplished.)   If so,
will your email address remain the same?

While you say you do not have specific Mary Gardens at the
monastery, this is the prevalent situation in religious
communities, where niche Mary Garden "corners" are the typical
appropriate arrangement.  See the article on "Niche Mary Gardens"
posted to our web site for our July NEW, featuring the new niche
Mary Garden of our Irish Associate, Brother Sean MacNamara, C.F.C.
of the Christian Brothers - planted nestled in the larger garden
of his new community residence at Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland
(where he has now been located, thoughtfully, by his superiors,
in retirement from his years of teaching and administrative
responsibilities).  We are arranging with a Tullamore computer
service organization, SelfGrow, for Brother to access the Net from
their location (as at the Cyber Cafe's springing up at major
cities world-wide these days), to have an email box, and to have
the use of a digital camera so that he can send, as well as
receive, digital flower and garden photo files (.jpeg format) as
attachments to email messages - without having a computer of his
own.  How about a little Flowers of Our Lady niche at your kitchen
garden".  "Our Lady-in-the-Corn" comes to mind.

I indeed hope for the growth of Mary-Gardening in the Anglican
comunity - world-wide.  I believe I previously made mention of my
1984 article (Under Developmental Articles) "Flowers of the Virgin
Mary" in AVE, publication of the Anglican, Society of Mary, and of
the Flowers of Our Lady planting at the Anglican, Lincoln
Cathedral (per Representative Mary Gardens/Cloister Mary Garden on
the web site).  The prospect of a Mary Garden at Walsingham is
very close to my heart, and I wrote previously of my conjecture
about the naming of the "Slipper Chapel".

Yes, I, too, take the long view about establishing a Mary Garden
foothold and movement in the UK.  Our August NEW posting will set
forth the historical context and imperative as we see it. I have a
sort of personal angle to this, as one of my ancestors was on the
jury that condemned Thomas Moore, and the family residence for
years was a former monastery farmhouse known as "Friar's Grange"
-"sequestered", as a family historian tactfully put it, and given
to them by Henry VIII.

In reviewing Dowling's Flowers of the Sacred Nativity, it became
clearer to me how the essence of Mary Gardening, as distinct from
the general (English) religious sense of gardening, is that once
one truly discovers the Creator/Father in nature, flowers and
gardens, one yearns for and seeks to discover as well the
Redeemer/Son and the Sanctifier/Renewer Holy Spirit and the
trinitarian endowment of Mary as prerogatived immaculate sharer
and shower forth of the fullness of the divine goodness and
action, per the purpose of Creation, and the Mysteries of the
Rosary which we are to emulate that we may obtain what they
promise, including the restoration of God's Paradise and the
building of God's Kingdom on earth as they are in heaven.

Are you anywhere near the location of Norfolk Priory, where the
15th Century "S. Mary's Garden" was located (per monastic
accounting records)?

With thanks for everything,


3 Aug 1997, John Stokes

This is to let you know that we have put up on the web site as our
"August NEW": "Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in the U.K.".

The first link is to the Lincoln Cathedral Cloister planting
which, to our knowledge, is the first contemporay public Mary
Garden in the U.K. - a sort of parallel to the 1932 Garden of Our
Lady at St.Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, Massachusetts - the
first public Mary Garden in the U.S. - of which my Mary's Gardens
founding partner, and mentor, the late Edward A. G.McTague
(R.I.P.), remarked "Why not more than one.".

The second link is to the documentation: a composite list of
Flowers of Our Lady from Britten & Holland's "Dictionary of
English Plant Names", Grigson's "The Englishman's Flora" and
Dowling's "The Flora of the Sacred Nativity"; also Smith's "The
Mary Calendar" - the basis of the Woods Hole planting.

The third is to your address as the practical U.K.source of
information, seeds and inspiration, with a sub-link to the
"Catholic Herald" article (with your new monastery address
substituted).

The fourth is an "Historical Overview" outline with numerous
links, and with the option to moving immediately to the narrative
text.  Three major links are to the 1980's "AVE" article; to
Rosetta Clarkson's account of the pre-Reformation St. Mary's
Garden at Melrose Abbey in the first chapter, "In a Monastery
Garden", from her book, "Green Enchantment"; and to extensive
excerpts from the "Sacra Flora" first chapter of Dowling's book.

If there are things that are incorrect, inappropriate or in need
of improvement, please let me know so I can change them (I am most
sanguine about this).

The quotes from Dowling are extensive, and perhaps tedious, but
are there for those who may want the longer treatment; and the
outline is always there for people who want the quick trip.

In a more reflective reading of Francine Greenwood's "Catholic
Herald" article, I was struck by Ed McTague's spirit and
(enhanced) phrasing shining through: "Start a Mary Garden . . ."
and "The Mary Garden is an act of faith . . ." - from our first
1951 "Our Lady's Garden" introductory seed kit.  Is Francine
Greenwood a practicing Mary Gardener, or still a Mary Gardener of
the heart?  A beautiful article.  We treasure Father Dunne's
observation, under "Testimonials" on the web site, about how
meaningful the Flowers of Our Lady can be for those who may not
actually garden.

I trust all is going well at your new location.


11 Aug 1997, John  Stokes

If you are able to set up some sort of niche garden in the kitchen
garden or elsehere on the monastery grounds at some future time,
we could post a photo. We are working with an Internet server in
Bro. Se‡n's area to see if we can get him on email and accessing
the web, and also set up with a digital camera so he can send us
photos, and receive them from us, as gif or jpeg email
attachments.

We used to have two postal addresses in the U.S., the second one
being in Hagerman, Idaho, until our beloved Associate of 25 years,
Bonnie Roberson, who had a nursery and shipped seeds and plants,
died in 1983 (RIP).  When we established our email address in
1995, per the web page, we did not put our present postal address
(Mary's Gardens, Box 30290, Philadelphia, PA 19103) on the Web
because, frankly, we had experienced a "burn out" after answering
40,000 postal inquiries, and wanted others to do the work,
retrieving the information themselves from the Net.

Our present four U.S.Associates are persons involved with parish
and shrine gardens, and do not handle mail information inquiries.
Occasionally we receive email reqests for information from people
not on the web, and we email them plant lists and introductory
information

We would hope to have Mary's Gardens postal and email addresses in
France, Gemany, Spain, etc., and will actively pursue this when we
post our "Flowers of Our Lady in France", etc. to the web.  A lot
of work to do here. I put the full German research on card files
in 1965, and am just reactivating it.  For France, I have to spend
hours going through Rolland. I have the beginning Spanish on cards
too, again from 1965. (I took a year off from my profesional work
that year, but was then prevailed upon to head up a store front
interfaith ecumenical center, which led to other things such as
consulting and the production of TV programs, and didn't get back
to Mary's Gardens inquiries until 1980, and to the research just
now, per the UK list of plants.)


T21 Aug 1997, Lauretta Santarossa

I think my friend at Canterbury Press (Christine Smith, publisher)
is in touch with the Carmelite sister you spoke about in your
last letter.  In fact, she may have commissioned her to do a book
on English Mary Gardens.  It seems everything old is new again
(beauty ever ancient, ever new) with Mary on the cover of
Newsweek.  Everybody I've talked to about Mary Gardens is
fascinated and I've been giving them copies of the info downloaded
from your website.


25 Aug 1997, John Stokes

Dear Sr. Lynn Marie,

Your quote, from the Catholic Herald article, "Nature and our
gardens speak to our contemplative heart", has had quite bit of
unction for me, and I'd like to share with you below (less photos)
a piece I wrote yesterday, which it infused, "Wayside Flowers and
Shrines of Our Lady" - for our web site "September NEW".

I hope for October to have formatted our German research.  I have
pulled out 1000 card files of references researched back in 1965,
for "MARIANNA II". I never got it into publication form then (nor
the Spanish, Iberian Peninsula, research) - just adding some of
the more horticulturally suitable species to our plant lists; but
the vehicle of the Internet has motivated me to undertake this
task.  The French isn't even on card files yet.

Moving from the U.K.to the German research, I am struck by how
many of the religious flower names of the old south German,
Bavarian, oral traditions made it into print, in the Roman
Catholic cultural continuity there - as compared to the
Reformation suppression in England.  I'm sure there were many more
religious flower names in the U.K., which were lost by the time
such names were recorded in the 19th century.  But there is
something very special about those names which did survive,
focused around Bethlehem and Nazareth - although it is important
to the over-all picture to have the German names for the "other"
Mysteries.

When you write your book, please feel free to use any materials
from the web site; and I stand ready to offer any other
assistance.  The web site is my "book", and it just scratches the
surface of all the notes and letters in our archives.


19 Nov 1997, John Stokes

Greetings.

I hope this finds you settled into the hermitage.  Are you able to
continue with your Mary Garden work at this time in the new
circumstances?

I've just posted to the Mary's Gardens web site
(http://www.mgardens.org) an updated version of the Flowers of
Our Lady and Mary Gardens slide lecture (50 slides and narration
text), which has been our primary means of informing and
motivating interested groups through the years.

For Dec 1st it will be listed, with link, as DEC NEW, but it is
now acessible under "Develpmental Articles" and "Archive of
Monthly 'New' Announcements" (Dec 1997) on the web site.

For a number of years we made a 1961 version of the lecture
available in 35mm slide format with printed narration text (also
audio-taped narration with Gregorian chant background).

Now, on the web site the lecture serves as an introduction and
perspective for the other texts.

I hope it contains some information and approaches which may be
helpful to you.

With all prayerful best wishes for a holy Advent season,


29 Nov 1997, Internet Mail Delivery System

(notice that John Stokes message of 29 Nov 1997 to S. Lynn Marie
was undeliverable due to termination of e-mail address)

Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 06:37:18 -0500 
From: Mail Delivery
Subsystem  
Subject: Returned mail: 
User unknown 
To:  Auto-Submitted:
auto-generated (failure)


   ----- Original message follows -----


Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 06:33:23 -0500 
To: "Sr.Lynn Marie"  
From: "Mary's Gardens" 
Subject: Catherine Doherty, Madonna House




3 Dec 1997, John Stokes to Mark Alder, UK

Thanks for the suggestion re. a Mary's Dowry section of the
website. The goal of restoring England as Mary's Dowry was an
initial motivation for Mary's Gardens, as set forth in the 1946
article, "Lillie Tower" by Father Galvin, c.ss.r.(appended at the
end of this message) which was our inspiration.

I'll have to ponder it a bit to see if I can get a "handle" on it.
Gardening in England was and is so solidly grounded in the
Reformation "No Popery", that there is a massive cultural
resistance to the Mary Garden idea, even though the Flowers of Our
Lady were so much a part of pre-Reformation popular oral tradition
of Our Lady's Dowry, as was Walsingham, etc..

Interestingly there is a parallel situation in Ireland, where
there are such deep nature roots in the original Celtic
Chrstianity of Ss. Patrick, Columba, Bridget and St. Fiacre,
patron saint of gardeners, etc., yet it has been overlaid by the
later dominance of Roman and Benedictine Catholicism, with the
focus on parishes rather than monasteries, etc. with a getting
away from nature.

I've been looking to the insights and advice of our new U.K.
Mary's Gardens Associate, Sr. Lynn Marie, who wrote on July 20th:

"Please do not despair that things are not moving very quickly. We
are trying to build a solid foundation but this takes time.  We
British tend to be skeptics by nature but a sure way to the
English heart is through our garden so we will gradually make
Mary's Gardens better known.  This being the hundredth anniversary
of the re-dedication of the Catholic Shrine in Walsingham may see
things move forward.  Our bishop is also quite supportive
so...next year at this time we may have even more to share with
you."

A recent email message I sent her, since last emailing you, was
returned, "Address Unknown", so maybe her new rule in her
Carmelite monastery hermitage precludes email.  I have re-sent the
message via postal mail, and hope for a reply.  She indicated at
one point that others of her community would be going to assist
her in the Mary's Gardens work.

Her address (in case you happen to be somewhere near Norfolk) is:

     Sr. Lynn Marie
     Mary's Gardens,
     Carmelite Monastery,
     Quidenham,
     Norfolk  NR16 2PH,
     ENGLAND


She writes: "Anyone is free to visit the monastery however we do
not have specific Mary Gardens."  (She is a "kitchen gardener"
growing herbs and vegetables for the Community. -  Most religious
do not have the "luxury" of growing a Mary Garden;  more typically
they grow niche Mary Gardens of a few Flowers of Our Lady and
maybe a small statue nestled in with the landscaping or in a
hidden corner of some other garden.)

Yes, by all means, let's keep in touch, with our unity of view.



6 Mar 1988, Laraine Bennett

I found your web-site and it is  wonderful!!!

I'd like to print your e-mail address in our  newsletter for
Catholic families, called "Family 2000" which is also  sponsored
by the Legionaries of Christ (order of priests faithful to the
Holy  Father).  I tried to write to Sister Lynn in England, but
her e-mail came back undeliverable.

Is there another e-mail address for  her, other than the one you
printed?    That was cygnus@netcomuk.co.uk  Please write back and
let me know if it is OK to give out your address.

I love the idea of Mary Gardens!

We can spread the word.

I spoke to a friend in the Legion of Mary, who also runs  a
bookstore, and she had never heard of them!


10 Mar 1998, John Stokes to Laraine Bennett

Thank you for your insightful and enthusiastic message of March
6th regarding our work for the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens.

You may of course print our email address in "Family 2000", for
which we thank you.

The status of Sr. Lynn in England is currrently a mystery.  She
first contacted us by email last spring, telling us of her work as
a monastic kitchen gardener and of her initiative in spreading the
custom of growing Mary Gardens in England - "Mary's Gardens are
started in the U.K.!" - including the giving of her postal and
email addresses as a source for information and seeds as mentioned
in articles in the Catholic Herald, London and the Scottish
Catholic Observer, Glascow.

We entered into an extensive exchange of email messages, and then
she sent me the following, which I share with you in view of your
interest and attempt to communicate with her:


                            o O o

From:  
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997
To: "Mary's Gardens" 
Subject: Re: started in the UK

Dear Mr. Stokes,

>
>
>

If you wish to print any address it should be: 

Carmelite Monastery, 
Quidenham, 
Norfolk  NR16 2PH

Anyone is free to visit the monastery however we do not have
specific Mary Gardens. . . .

I have recently made my solemn commitment to a more eremitical way
of life which means that I am much more tied to the monastery. . . 

I will try to keep up the work with Mary's Gardens but will need
to depend more on the  help of other members keen to do some of
the personal contact work.  My work in the monastery is with the
gardens but involves much in the kitchen garden at this time of
the year. . . .

The address given in the Catholic Herald was temporary until my
hermitage was finished.  Now, please direct all correspondence to
the monastery.

Thank you.


                             o O o


We had one more exchange of messages.  Then, three short messages
from me were unanswered; and finally in November a message from me
was returned by the Internet stating that her email address did
not exist (as you experienced).

On this, I wrote to her by postal mail at the new address given in
her above message, with a copy to the old address.  The envelope
to the old address was returned to me "refused", and I have had no
answer from the original, although it was not returned.

Just last week I sent a message to Deborah Jones, Editor of the
London Caholic Herald asking if she could tell me anything about
Sr. Lynn, and if she or anyone else was carrying on with the Mary
Garden work.  This at the time I sent Sr. Lynn, Deborah Jones and
various U.K. catholic and gardening publications a postal mail
press announcement of the material on computerized Mary Garden
design posted to the web site as our "March NEW"  Deborah has a
Mary Garden of her own at her home.

The key to getting going in a new country is the providential
emergence of an inspired person, such as Brother Sean MacNamara in
Ireland, whose work led to the Knock Shrine Mary Garden.  I was
overjoyed with the appearance of Sr. Lynn, with her vision re.
Walsingham, etc. and her work with the Anglican community. I do
hope this non-communication from her is a temporary adjustment to
her new monastic rule.  I treasure the quote from her in the
Catholic Herald article re. the appeal of Mary Gardens to "the
cloistered heart".  Every day I pour over our log to see how many
acesses there have been to the web site from the U.K., Ireland,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc..  Mary's Gardens is at present
very much a U. S. movement - much vitalized by the web site, D.G.
- but I of course have world hopes, for the earthly Kingdom and
Paradise (per the Mary Garden Prayer).

Thanks again for your interest.  I'll let you know if I hear
anything from Sr. Lynn.


4 April 1998, John Stokes to Deborah Jones

We continue to have our letters to Sr. Lynn Marie, c/o both the
Monastery addresses in Norfolk, returned to us marked "refused".
Likewise with letters to "Mary's Gardens" (per your 16/5/97
article) at these addresses.  The second address given to us by
Sr. Lynn Marie last summer, before her email address was
discontinued last fall was: Carmelite Monastery, Quidenham,
Norfolk NR16 2PH, England, U.K.

Sister mentioned in her email message giving the new address that
she was moving to a hermitage on the monastery grounds, while
continuing her monastic kitchen gardening work, and that other
members of the community might be assisting her in replying to
Mary Garden inquiries.

Can you shed any light on this?  Is anyone else in the U.K.
(Scotland?) serving as a source for Mary Garden information?

Another thing you might be able to help us with.  Last summer we
wrote Kegan Paul International (publishers) in London requesting
permission to quote extensively from "Flora of the Sacred
Nativity" by Alfred Dowling (1900); but received a reply from
Peter Hopkins, Chairman, refusing permission for the reason that
they were about to reissue the book.

We haven't see it announced on their Internet web site, and
several inquiries as to the publication date have been unanswered.
Anything you might be able to find out about this would be
appreciated.  Also, if it is reissued, a review in the Catholic
Herald might be appropriate?  This book and Judith Smith's "The
Mary Calendar" (1930) are the two classics on the Flowers of Our
Lady in  England.

I will send off one more email inquiry today to Peter Hopkins with
bcc to you, and will let you know if I receive a reply.


11 Nov 1998, John Stokes to Mark Alder, UK

Good to hear from you.

I appeciate your thoughtfulness in sending me the (one) scanned
copy of the 44 pages of Marian excerpts from the writings of
Cardinal Newman. (There are lots of basic Marian documents on the
Web, but not special goodies like these. There are so many
valuable Marian insights in the writings of the great minds and
hearts of our marvellous tradition.

>
>
>

Hearing from you from the U.K. prompts me to mention a puzzle
which you, or someone you know, might be able to help me solve.

In the spring of 1997 we had a most enthusiastic email message
from a Sister Lynn Marie, kitchen gardener of Carmelite Monastery,
56 Garlandes, East Hasting, Norfolk NR16 2NR saying she had
undertaken a commitment to promote and assist in the starting of
Mary Gardens in England, and that articles had been written in the
(London) Catholic Herald (whose Editor had started her own home
Mary Garden) for May 16, 1997, and also in the principal Scottish
Catholic weekly (whose name I don't have immediately at hand),
both giving her address as a source for Mary Garden information
and seeds.  We exchanged a number of email messages, in which she
mentioned such things as that her bishop was interested in the
starting of a proposed Mary Garden at Walsingham, etc.  In the
Herald article she was beautifully quoted that the Mary Garden was
"for the cloistered heart".

Then she emailed me in the fall that she had obtained permission
to live an eremetic rule (a la Thomas Merton) in a hermitage on
the monastery grounds, or an adjoining or nearby monastery
property, and that her new postal address would be: Carmelite
Monastery, Quidenham, Norfolk  NR16 2PH.  Then, a total
interruption of communications.  Her email address was
discontinued, and letters addressed to her, and then to "Mary's
Gardens", at both monastery addresses came back marked "return to
sender". ("Mary's Gardens" at the first monastery address was the
one given in the Catholic Herald article for readers to write to,
and she had told me that other nuns would be assisting her in
sending out information and seeds.)  I have visions of her tending
a few flowers next to her Carthusian-like cell.  However,
according to Vatican II even the most cloistered of persons are
now expected to make some feedback to "the world".

I have sent email and postal messages to the Editor of the
Catholic Herald, Deborah Jones, who on request had sent me copies
of the article last year, asking if she knew what is going on, but
now silence from her.  Do you know anyone in the Norfolk area who
might knock on a few monastery doors to see what goes with Sr.
Lynn Marie.  She was a missionary for 20 years in Taiwan before
entering the convent.  (I think they are cloistered, but not O
Carm).

We receive up to 10 web site accesses a day from the U.K., but no
one aside from Sr. Lynn Marie has so far indicated an interest or
commitment of a degree to serve as a support for Mary Gardening
there (to be backed up by us in turn from the U.S.).

Don't go out of your way on this, Mark, but keep it in mind.


13 Nov 1998, Mark Alder

Have received this further input from a contact over here.

"Just had the following from a priest friend in the Diocese ...

"'Tim  Sorry about the long delay re your request about Sister
Lynn Marie.  Sr Lynne Marie lives in the grounds of Quidenham,
her house is called 'Horeb'.  She is not now doing 'Mary Gardens'.

"'Not of very much help, I am afraid. Best wishes, Tim'"




13 Nov, 1998, John Stokes

Many thanks for the new information.

This is just what I wanted: something concrete.  I'm glad Sr. Lynn
Marie is OK, and continuing with her new eremetic commitment in
the hermitage.

In view of her previous commitment and input to our work, I assume
her superiors or spiritual director asked her to give up this and
other contact with the external world - email and all - (without
notice to others) as a stepped-up mortification of her eremetic
rule.

I recall a friend who entered the Carthusian order mentioning to
me that the destination and use of any gardening or crafts
products from his work in his isolated cell, isolated even from
the other monks, was never made known to him - as part of his
mortification and detachment.  (I learned this because he
contracted TB and was ordered by his superiors to give up his
commitment and unheated cell, and returned to the world.)

I'll send Sr. Lynn Marie a personal Christmas card.

In the meantime, I sent a postal letter and introductory brochure
off to kitchen-gardening Sr. Marie Litchfield ODC of W. Yorks, as
suggested in your previous message.

John


28 Jul 1999, John Stokes to Mark Alder

I followed up the leads you provided re. Sr.Lynn Marie, OCD in our
echange of messages last November, and while you obtained
confirmation for me as to where she is now, I couldn't get through
to her any more by email or letters to her at her hermitage there.
I feel certain she prays for our work, and I recall frequenty her
speaking of "the love of the cloistered heart" for the Flowers of
Our Lady.  She had mentioned that her Bishop was interested in a
Mary Garden at Our Lady's Shrine at Walsingham, but I think this
was to have been built on her initiative.  So we hope and pray for
some other inspired initiative in the U.K. from someone "who has a
sense for these things", as Mary's Gardens' founding partner, Ed
McTague, used to put it.  She had mentioned that others of her
community would help her in her Mary Gardening work when she
undertook her stricter rule,  but this evidently has not been
forthcoming so far.  I don't know whether she has continued in her
kitchen gardening work for her community.


28 Jul 1999, John Stokes to Jill Dick, UK

Thank you for your message of July 6 inquiring about Mary Gardens
in England.

There is a kind of blind spot here.

Oxford Scholar, Alfred Dowling's "The Flora of the Sacred
Nativity" (London, 1900), is one of the most researched,
authoritative studies of religious flower symbolism in any
country.  Also of note are Britten & Holland's "A Dictionary of
English Plant Names" (1886), Grigson's "The Englishman's Flora"
(1958), and the Oxford English Dictionary, under "Lady's".

This and more is on our website under RESEARCH - UK

Frances Crane Lillie, founder of the first U. S. public Mary
Garden at St. Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1932
told us she had her inspiration from "English monastery gardens"
and then from Judith Smith's "The Mary Calendar" published by St.
Dominic's Press in Ditchling in 1930.  Among our treasured
possessions are 4 of a series of Flowers of Our Lady holy cards
published by the Medeci Press in the 40's or early 50's, and
several flower-illustrated "Our Lady's Kalendars" by Katherine
Pinchard of  "St. Raphael's (retirement home?) in the 1950's.
Numerous articles published in U.S. magazines through the years
have been reprinted in English magazines.

On the other hand, the only U.K. actual planting of the Flowers of
Our Lady of which we know is that of the Flowers of Our Lady
planted in the cloister garden of Lincoln Cathedral in 1979 by the
late John Codrington of the Lincoln Herb Society "to preserve from
oblivion some of the ancient legends about the plants that are
associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary." Several years ago a
family member visited Lincoln, verifying that the planting was
still there then.  Also hand-out literature about the garden was
available at the desk.

A beautiful pamphlet describing the Lincoln Garden and its flowers
- with a composite painting of the flowers - was published in the
early 80's by "The Flower Arranger" magazine in London, with whom
we then exchanged a number of letters, following which they
published an article, "The Mary Garden of Old" in their Winter,
1984 issue.

In 1984 our article, "Flowers of the Virgin Mary" was published in
"AVE", publication of the Anglican, Society of Mary - proposing
the planting of Mary Gardens of Flowers of Our Lady in the U.K..
Subsequent articles were published in "AVE" on the rose and lily
as symbols of Mary by the late Horace Keast, of the Society.

In the spring of 1987 we were contacted by Sr. Lynn Marie, OCD,
kitchen gardener at the Carmelite monastery in Quidenham, by
e-mail, informing us that she had undertaken to be an UK source of
information and seeds for the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens.  An article, "Flowers for the Queen of the May",
describing her initiative was published in the London, Catholic
Herald of May 16, 1997.  We exchanged a number of e-mail messages
with her over the summer, in which she mentioned such things as
that the Bishop was interested in  starting a Mary Garden at
Walsingham.

Then, abruptly, Sr. Lynn Marie informed us that she was
undertaking an additional eremetic rule in a hermitage on the
monastery grounds; was discontinuing all communications outside
the monastery; and was terminating her e-mail address.
Subsequently we attempted to communicate with her, and then with
others at the monastery by postal mail, but our letters were
refused and returned.  We then inquired of Deborah Jones, Editor
of the London, Catholic Herald several times ("Miss Deborah Jones"
), but our e-mail messages were unanswered.
She had previously informed us she had a small Mary Garden of her
own.

At our request a year ago, a personal correspondent in the U.K.,
through investigation on location, verified that Sr. Lynn Marie
was still a member of the Carmelite monastery at Quidenham.

Since our Internet Mary's Gardens Web Site was started on
September 8, 1995, it has been accessed by hundreds of persons
from the U.K., pretty much daily - some accessing as many as 100
files . . . . but after all this we are unable to refer you to any
Mary Garden in he U.K., other than the planting in the Cloister of
Lincoln Cathedral, and maybe Deborah Jones' garden.

We nevertheless conclude there must be numerous private Mary
Gardens in the U.K., and it is our fond hope that the glorious
tradition of English gardens will be extended to continue the
tradition of the Flowers of Our Lady with the resulting planting
of many beautiful Mary Gardens available to the public at churches
and institutions, in addition to the cloister garden at Lincoln
Cathedral.

Therefore, we turn to you, and ask if you could do some checking
on location - such as with Deborah Jones  of the London Catholic
Herald and the monastery at Quidenham.