Chat & Photos
Update & Photos 2003
New Parish Mary Garden
Deborah Pein
Pocatello, ID
May 26, 200l
For the past year our parish (St. Anthony's) in Idaho has been in
the process of planting a Mary Garden. Your website has provided us
with a wealth of information and we greatly appreciate your time
and effort in maintaing and upgrading the information!
Just to give you an idea of what we have done thus far:
Summer 2000:
Formed a committee to gain parish's acceptance and initiate a plan.
Blessed Mary's Garden on her birthday in September.
Hired a landscape architect to research Mary's flowers and design a
garden plan. She used your website for information as well as the
book: "Mary's Flowers ~ Gardens, Legends and Meditations".
Fall and Winter 2000-2001
We decided that we wanted to place a rosary made of stepping stones
in the garden and that we would offer the stones for a contribution
of $25.00. We have allocated the money received from the rosary
stones to be used for an automated sprinkler system. Presently,
all but three stones have been contributed.
The landscaper's conceptualized plan complete with legend flowers
has been on display in our church hall since the fall.
We decorated the garden at Christmas with lights. Members of our
youth group helped with this.
In January, we met and made plans to offer patio Mary Gardens to
parishoners for their contribution of $20.00 or more. This was a
tremendous success and we are planning to repeat this effort next
January. A local greenhouse planted and cared for the plants for
us
During the winter and we offered these the week before and the
weekend of Mother's Day.
Spring 2001
We have maintained on-going communication with the parishioners and
delivered a special presentation on the first Sunday in May to
honor Our Blessed Mother. Children in the First Communion classes
placed the May Crown of flowers on Mary.
We are presently in the process of cutting the new beds and
installing the benches and the arbor that will be placed around the
statue of Our Blessed Mother.
A family in our parish wishes to contribute a "life size statue of
Our Blessed Mother. So far we have only found one that is
manufactured from a company in New York. The statue is Our Lady of
Grace and is made of fiberglass. We would like to find a Statue of
Our Blessed Mother with the Christ Child. Do you know of any
vendors that sell larger statues, preferably concrete or made of
some other type of similiar material?
Any information would be greatly appreciated!
I have taken many photos of the many facets of our Mary Garden and
will forward them and the story of our spiritual journey to you as
the garden continues to flourish!
Again, we greatly appreciate your ministry and look forward to
communicating with you.
Thank you,
Reply
John Stokes, Mary's Gardens
31 May, 2001
It was a joy to receive your report of your carefully thought
through and executed plan for the St. Anthony's Parish Mary Garden
in Pocatella
There have been a number of parish Mary Gardens started, which were
not kept up when the persons starting them left the scene, and our
several suggestion outlines have been developed with a view to
helping overcome this. I would appreciate receiving any thoughts
you have from your experience that we might suggest to others. Your
idea of receiving contributions for the Rosary stepping stones will
be adopted by others. Also your hiring of a landscape architect to
develop the garden plan will give the garden a sense of permanence.
The automatic sprinkler system will do much to maintain plant
luxuriance. I note your use of Christmas lights in the garden, and
am reminded that a parish Mary Garden in Australia installed
spotlights to light up the garden at night during the bloom season.
The offering of Patio Container Mary Gardens does much to create
parishioner interest in the main Mary Garden
Yes, pleas send some photos that can be added to this posting. Some
in-progress photos would be of interest.
Sources for appropriate Mary Garden statues are few at present. We
have wanted to make our Mary, Seat of Wisdom statue available again,
but are still looking for someone to mold copies. It is possible
to finish fiberglass so that it resembles concrete as with the
statue in
http://ststephencatholic.org/garden.htm .
Fiberglass has the advantage that it is less likely to crack with
winter freezing and thawing. With concrete or similar material
statues it is important not to have folds which retain rainwater
which may freeze.
One source of an Immaculate Heart fiberglass statue is
www.cathshop.com
A source of statues which was recently suggested to us is
www.statue.com/html/Rel.htm
but they have a lot of folds and we're not sure just what the
material is. We haven't contacted them. Perhaps you could, and
let us know.
I am especially pleased to learn of a new Idaho parish Mary Garden,
as our late Mary's Gardens partner, Bonnie Roberson, carried
forward our work from 1968 to 1983 from Hagermann, in the South, on
the Snake River. I visited with her and her husband, Ernie, for
several days in 1968. Former Bishop Treinan of the Idaho Diocese
visited with her in her Mary Garden and I have a tape she made of
their conversation there. You no doubt have read the various
articles about and by her on the website, all linked from "Mary
Gardener of Love".
Of special note was her exhibition, on invitation, of a miiature
replica of her renowned Herb Mary Garden at the 1962 annual meeting
of the Herb Society of America in Washington, DC. Senator Church
of Idaho visited the exhibit, and invited her as his guest at lunch.
Bonnie pioneered in the development of indoor Dish Mary Gardens,
and exhibited numbers of them for many years at annual meetings of
the Idaho Council of Catholic Women, at which she frequently spoke.
The recently opened Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington
- near the Catholic University of America and the Basilica of the
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and its new Mary's
Garden - has a Mary Garden display featuring a large rear-lighted
photo of Bonnie in her Mary Garden, which originally illustrated
the May, 1962 article of The Marianist, "A Garden Full of Aves",
about her renowned Herb Mary Garden - a miniature model of which
was exhibited on invitation that year at the annual meeting of the
Herb Society of America in Washington. You will note her statue of
"Mary, Seat of Wisdom" in the photo - she once remarked that the
shape of the state of Idaho reminded her of a view of that statue
from the side.
If St. Anthony's has a school, you will be interested in:
"Mary Gardens for Children - Project Guide for Home & School
Use" by Lisa Creamer, 36 pp., 10 illustrations; Morning Star
Gifts, Olney, MD, April 2001 - $9.00 plus $1.39 first class
mail postage to anywhere in the U.S.. Check or Money Order.
Thanks again for the news of St. Anthony's Mary Garden.
With prayerful best wishes,