Augmenting An Existing Parish Garden
Feb 12, 2000, Betsy Mickey, Tulsa, Oklahoma
I have read the articles on your site with enormous interest. I am
designing revisions for the Ave Maria Garden at our church. We are
addressing two areas of research:
1. Any flowers with Marian associations for general use
throughout the garden.
2. Flowers which more directly illustrate the mysteries of the
Rosary for landscaping along our Rosary Walk.
Your lists have been of enormous assistance with plants of European
background. However, our parish includes a large Hispanic
population, and we would like to include plants which would reflect
their culture. Is your list of Latin American plants a list of
European associations with plants of the New World, or are the
associations mentioned there locally known? For example, a plant I
know as Mexican marigold or Mexican tarragon brought a joyous
recognition to a Mexican friend, who knows it as Sancta Maria.
Unfortunately, she is horticulturally limited, and could take me no
farther.
Can you please set me straight? We are looking forward to the
revisions in our garden.
Thank you for your help,
Feb 25, 2000, John Stokes, Mary's Gardens
Thank you for your message of Feb 12th.
Apologies for the delay in response - so many e-mails.
The list of Latin American plants was almost entirely based on
research in the 1960's of Spanish and Portuguese Language floras of
the Central and South American countries - undertaken by our late
Associate, Bonnie Roberson of Hagermann, Idaho, in search of
tropicals for indoor dish Mary Garden use.
I don't have the research card file at hand just now, but my
recollection is that it contains both the original Spanish etc.
names and her or my dictionary English translations of them.
In the Latin American list, typed up in 1965 for mimeographing, we
omitted the Spanish names because of space reasons; but now with
smaller point fonts and longer line width available on computers,
we plan to restore the Spanish names, and still have one line for
each plant. A few of the English names were from "Exotica III",
where we assume they were also English translations from the
Spanish/Portuguese.
You will notice that both the Spanish names and our English
translations are included in our Iberian Spanish research, typed up
from the 1960's card files just recently - ditto, in German, for
the German list.
Most of the Latin American plants listed are frost-tender, making
the perennials unsuited for temperate zone Mary Gardens, but there
are a good number of annuals which can be used - sowed or put out
in the garden after the danger of frost is past each spring.
If you come up with additional names of Spanish origin - especially
for hardy perennials - we would appreciate your letting us know of
them for adding to our research. Also, we would appreciate
learning the lists of plants you are using for Hispanic Mary
Gardens; and in receiving eventual photos. An article should be
written on this, for others.
Recently a niece spent several months in Equador and tells us there
was a red flower there commonly known as "Our Lady's Lips" or "Our
Lady's Smile", but she and we have been unable to learn its
botanical identification.
I am sending a CC of this message to Rita Troshynski who has
selected plants for a Hispanic Parish Mary Garden in Connecticut,
in case she can share with you from her experience.
As for Rosary Walks there is likewise need for further thought
here, as to garden layout and planting that will best be supportive
of Rosary prayer and meditation. Ideally, there would be a layout
in the likeness of a string of Rosary beads, as some gardens now
have, with a Crucifix at the entrance and then a "string" walk of
square stones for the Paters and round stones for the Aves, along
which people proceed as they pray the 5 joyful, sorrowful or
glorious mysteries. The challenge is how to position plants which
will correlate with the mysteries and quicken reflection and
meditation on them.
Since the same path of "beads" is used for joyful, sorrowful and
glorious mysteries, it is too complex to attempt to correlate
symbolic plants with the "bead" stones of one walk - unless there
were 3 separate "bead" walks - joyful, sorrowful and glorious.
One approach to this is in a Mary Garden grounds planting being
installed this year at St. Mary's Church in Rockville, MD, by Lisa
Creamer in which there are a number of Mary Garden beds on the
parish grounds, including one bed of "joyful" plants, one of
"sorrowful" and one of "glorious". The thought here is that one
proceeds to the bed corresponding to the mysteries prayed that day,
and then prays the Rosary with beads in hand, with enrichment of
one's meditations by: 1) the border planting color (annuals
blooming for the entire growing season) white for the joyful bed,
red and purple for the sorrowful, and gold and yellow for the
glorious; 2) corresponding white, red and gold long-blooming roses,
and 3) by plants, in bloom, symbolic of or related to specific
mysteries (and by the plant marker/labels which serve to call to
mind virtually those which may not be in bloom at any given time).
The Rosary Walk at St. Joseph's Church, Newton, N.C., pictured in
the web site article, "Parish and Shrine Mary Gardens" (linked
under "GARDEN PRAYER & MEDITATION" on the homepage) has a Mary
Garden with a small statue of Our Lady, a pool, and
mystery-symbolic flowers inside the loop of the Rosary Walk.
There is a large Rosary Garden on the grounds of a convent in Benet
Lake, Wisconsin in which the Rosary beads are pipe-mounted billiard
balls, connected by a chain. The planting (many years ago) of
which there are photos in our archives, was white, red and gold
border annuals, and rose bushes, with a separate Mary Garden, of
flowers symbolic of the Rosary Mysteries, by the entrance of the
Rosary walk.
There is room for some creativity here. Perhaps you will come up
with some innovative way of associating the flower symbols with the
walk.
One interesting historical note. Our Irish Mary's Gardens
Associate, Brother Sean MacNamara, who made a definitive botanical
survey of the famous Burren of County Clare - famous because of its
several micro-climates and wide variety of plants - told us that in
the course of his on-foot travels all through the Burren he came
across several ancient Stone Henge like "stone rings", which the
Irish monks of old used to "baptize" by praying the Psalms, Our
Lady's Psalter, or the Rosary mysteries as they walked around them
from stone to stone. Perhaps, historically, the first Rosary Walk.
Can you e-mail us some photos of your Ave Maria Garden. (A title
given to a 1962 article published by "The Marianist" of the
University of Dayton /Marian Library was "A Garden Full of Aves").
Hoping this is helpful,
Feb 27, 2000, Betsy
Thank you for your thoughtful reply to my questions on Spanish
names for our Ave Maria garden. I am going to have to digest it a
bit, but it looks extremely helpful. In the meantime I thought you
might enjoy a little history of our project.
The garden was started around four years ago on the vacant lot
which had held the parish school until a fire destroyed it in 1981.
The rubble was dozed into the basement, and some dirt was shoved
over it, then nature took its course. When our present pastor
moved into the adjacent rectory, he began gardening as a pastime.
Soon a young woman suggested that a garden could be made with the
help of some design students from the nearby University. Work
proceded, donations were given, memorial plaques were made, and
soon a garden grew. The bones of the garden were antique roses,
the paths were lined with rocks, various people donated the
"blessings" from their gardens. One lone soul offered rocks to
build a central water feature...pool, channel, and grotto pool with
a statue of Our Lady, then wound up having to construct it
single-handed. The garden had beauty and peace and a rather
primitive sort of charm, but some of the plants were beginning to
get out of hand by last year.
I wandered by last fall and offered to donate my services as a
landscape designer, never dreaming that I would become so involved.
I began to evolve a base plan showing what we had on hand. Before
that was well under way, I found that we were to receive a gift of
15 shrines of the Rosary mysteries, which were to be installed and
dedicated by the Bishop in three weeks, and how should we get this
done. Budget: 0. Well, we did, sort of. The church carpenter
built "casitas" for the shrines, I sketched, measured and paced, a
crew arrived from the Catholic school to install, and we made it in
time for the dedication with hours to spare.
Our layout now is along the perimeter path surrounding the garden.
In one corner of the garden is the Mount of the Unborn, topped with
a cross. The Rosary path starts at the cross, with a pace for each
of the prayers along the way. The Joyful mysteries come first,
and, as luck would have it, finish just as there is an intercepting
path to lead one back to the Grotto. The Sorrowful mysteries pick
up at that point along the path and proceed to the next
intersecting path back to the Grotto. The Glorious mysteries lead
back to the entry walk to the garden. That part worked out well.
Unfortunately, right now it looks like a convocation of birdhouses,
and we are madly designing our landscaping to mask some of the
order. We have been able to find a number of plants which seem to
relate to each of the mysteries, and will use those in small
gardens surrounding each shrine, with the roses tying the whole
look together. I expect we will have to revise a few times before
we get something which is evocative, peaceful, and also eye
appealing, but we will persevere.
Your help cannot be overstated. I will keep you posted, and send
you pictures as we have anything more useful than construction and
winter weeds to show.
Thank you,
Feb 29, 2000, John
Thanks for your message telling of the most interesting history of
your parish Rosary Garden, and the space available because of the
burned down school to make a full 15 mysteries/stations size
garden.
It's the only full size one of which we know (there was was one at
a high school in the Philippines back in the 50's, and we have a
photo, but we've been unable to verify that it is still in
existence).
I can see you have a real landsccaping challenge on your hands to
develop a harmonious treatment for the 15 "birdhouses" shrines.
What is actally in each of the "casitas" to represent its Mystery?
I would be interested in seeing a "construction and winter weeds"
photo to better visualize the layout, Send it as an e-mail
attachment; or as hard copy to:
Mary's Gardens
Box 30290
Philadelphia, PA 19103
And do send a photo with this year's blooms!
Mar 1, 2001, John
I note our exchange of e-mails a year ago re. revisions you were
planning for the Ave Maria Garden at your parish church in Tulsa
last year.
Would you be able to e-mail us some photos of the garden, and a
list of the plants (I recall you were planning to use Hispanic
Marian plant names).
Also, the name of the parish.
People contact us from all over asking about Mary Gardens in their
areas, so we're developing a list.
We also have a Chat & Photos section on our website now, for which
we ask submissions of garden descriptions and photos for posting.
Tell us about the Hispanic dimension.
All prayerful best wishes for a holy Lent.
Sincerely,
Mar 1, 2001, Betsy
I well remember your nice letter of last year and apologize not
having gotten back in touch.
Our garden is undergoing some heavy revisions right now, so is not
at its best. In fact, in early March no part of the city is at its
best. Nonetheless, we welcome visitors and adore those who know a
weed and pull it!
The church is St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Tulsa, OK. We
are officially at First and Atlanta, but for visitors coming
through, take I-244 to the Lewis exit. In Tulsa we navigate by
major intersections, and we are 1 block east and 1 block south of
the intersection of Lewis and Admiral. The garden lies just to the
east of the church and rectory.
St. Francis has a small long-standing Anglo parish celebrating its
75th anniversary this year. About 10 years ago, Our Lady of
Guadalupe, initially a mission of St. Francis and then a parish in
its own right, outgrew its old church and came to join the
dwindling Anglo parish. We have one English service each Sunday,
and five or six Spanish masses.
As you can imagine, we have a lot of interest in plants with
Central and South American connections. Those who come to visit
will often find someone in the garden, but they may or may not be
able to communicate. Good will and hand gestures usually solve
important problems, and the minor ones often get a shrug and a
smile. A Spanish/English Dictionary is extremely useful.
I am just finishing up the list of plants that we are planning to
incorporate at the shrines. There are 15 shrines depicting the
mysteries of the Rosary, and we have been trying to find plants
which seem best to relate to each shrine or which depict the colors
of the mysteries. In addition we have a Mount of the Unborn, in
memory of the victims of abortion. The Mount features plants which
relate to Our Lady's maternal qualities or would be likely to
delight a child. The central feature of the Ave Maria Garden is a
stone grotto with a pool and a statue of Mother and child. Flowing
from the pool is a channel leading to a larger central pool. The
big pool cracked in the freeze this winter, so spring will bring
repairs there, and I strongly suspect that the giant bulrush
centerpiece will not have survived. A building which reflects the
Mission style architecture of the church is being built over the
grotto. The copper dome and the stucco walls also await milder
weather. The plantings in this area will all need to be reworked
when construction is finished, and I am hoping to concentrate on
white and Marian blue flowers there.
As soon as I have a civilized looking listing of plants prepared, I
will send it to you. In the meantime, think species roses, lilies,
daylilies, iris, chrysanthemums, and a riot of self-seeding annuals
in their season. Father Tim follows no known rules of horticulture,
the pruning done by the lawn man is terrifying, people plant and
pick and spray at random, watering gets done from time to time and
everything thrives. It is the absolute despair of a control freak,
and a glorious sight. Isn't God amazing?
My blessings on you and your work. It has been a great treat to
have it to refer to while working on our project. I look forward
to showing you the results someday. I live 20 minutes from the
church and can't be available to meet every casual visitor, but I'd
be glad to meet really serious Marian gardeners.
3 Mar, 2001, John
Thanks for your instant reply to my message of yesterday, and for
its full report on the St. Francis Xavier parish garden.
Would you be able to e-mail a digital photo of the garden as it was
last year so we could have a "before", and then. later, an "after"
when the enhanced planting is in bloom?
Your addition of Flowers of Our Lady to an existing "pretty garden
for our Holy Mother" to begin its transformation into a full Mary
Garden - of symbolic flowers quickening reflection and meditation
on Our Lady's priveleges, life, virtues, mysteries; and, thus,
prayerful recourse to her divinely endowed prerogatives for
mediation, with her Son, of the grace, light, wisdom and power
required to culminate the building of God's Kingdom "on earth as it
is in heaven" - is indeed a spiritual challenge.
I spell out this full concept of the Mary Garden because it
contains the elements eventually essential for the continuity of a
Mary Garden, once established, as an integral part of parish
spirtual life, from generation to generation "until the end of the
world".
When a new parish Mary Garden is started, with formal support of
the pastor, and with parish announcements and inaugural dedication
and blessing ceremony, there is a focus which facilitates the
formation of a Mary Garden Guild for care of the garden, and for
related Marian devotion and study, which establish the basis for
its care. But, how to accomplish this through the transformation
of an existing conventional garden is, indeed, a spiritual
challenge.
However, your description of the present effective informal
stewardship for the garden is beautiful and providential:
"Father Tim follows no known rules of horticulture, the
pruning done by the lawn man is terrifying, people plant
and pick and spray at random, watering gets done from time
to time and everything thrives. It is the absolute despair
of a control freak, and a glorious sight. Isn't God amazing?"
It would seem that perhaps you could enlist the committed
cooperation of several other interested parishioners to assist you
in the planting of Mary's Flowers and to join regularly in the
garden care, in this overall informal context. Just the
proportionate spacing of the plants and regular watering, weeding,
cultivation, edging, removal of spent blooms, and trimming back of
excess growth do so much to enhance the beauty and peaceful sense
of the garden.
Together with the planting of the new plants you could install low
plant markers for each plant grouping to introduce the Flowers of
Our Lady symbolism to other parishioners working in or visiting the
garden - giving the Mary-names in both Englsh and Spanish for your
Anglo/Hispanic parish.
An outline by Paula Mucha, "Establishing and Maintaining a Parish
Mary Garden", containing these and other suggstions based on her
'conversion' of St. Celia's Grotto in Ashland, MA, is linked at the
end of her Sep 7, 2000 Chat & Photo message.
The flower symbolism can also be introduced conversationally to
parishioners by you and others of your group when in the garden.
Frances Lillie, founder of the first U.S. public Mary Garden in
1932 at St. Joseph's Church in Woods Hole used to sit on one of the
benches in the garden, reading, so she could be there to tell
visitors of the symbolism. She also installed by the entrance to
the garden a pole-mounted wooden "wayside" shelter with glass
protected posted garden plan and list of plants.
Our late Mary's Gardens partner of 25 years, Bonnie Roberson,
R.I.P., of Hagerman, Idaho, planted her renowned Mary Garden to one
side of her commercial herb nursery, and when passers by on the
adjacent highway stopped to visit the nursery she would also walk
them through the Mary Garden, telling them of the plant symbolism.
One visitor's notes of such a tour are contained in the 1980
article, "Hagerman Woman Expert Herbalist" (/BR-HWEH-ITN.html) on
our website.
As you and your group work in the garden, with your thoughts and
prayers quickened by the plant symbols, becoming ever more
familiar, you will find yourselves making increasingly frequent
prayerful recourse to Mary's divinely endowed motherly prerogatives
- in her intimate union and singular cooperation wih her Divine Son
and Lord - of co-redemptive spiritual protection, consolation,
counsel, advocacy, intercession and mediation, according to God's
will, for immediate and Kingdomal needs.
And as you enhance the garden - horticulturally and symbolically -
through the years, you wlll find that each winter you will review
the symbolical floral array of the garden for symbols to be added
(per full Marian theology and the plant lists); and seed and
nursery catalogs for sources of symbolical plants to be added.
This, too, will be shared by you with other parishioners visiting
the garden, until there is a general adoption of the Mary Garden
into the spiritual life of the parish.
I hope these suggestions are of some help; hope you can send some
photos; and stand ready to be of any further assistance.
30 Jul 2004, Betsy
I don't know if you recall, but we have written before.
Our church, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Tulsa, has a
Marian garden which has been evolving over the past nine years,
starting as just a pretty place with a statue of Mary and then
including a small chapel and a Rosary Walk with gardens themed to
each mystery of the Rosary.
This Sunday the church will become a Shrine of Our Lady of
Guadalupe, and great events will take place. A cardinal from
Mexico is coming in to dedicate the Shrine, and our church grounds
have been a hive of brooms and clippers and paintbrushes for the
last month.
As the person who does most of the designing for this garden, I
have two new design efforts. The obvious one is to provide
appropriate plants on our Mount where the image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe will be placed. Roses of Castille are an obvious choice,
but I am trying to find out if there are other flowers that are
specifically associated with her. Better yet if they also reflect
Her protection of the Unborn.
And in the interest of diplomacy and harmony, I wonder if there
are flowers which are specifically associated with Our Lady of
Lourdes, who is represented by the statue in the little chapel.
I'd like to defuse the harrumphing caused by a war of the
virgins and prevent more sore spots erupting between the old and
the new, the Anglos and the Hispanics. And I'd like to reassure the
family who gave the chapel and its statue that she is not going to
be tossed out with the garbage. Please understand that this isn't
open warfare, it is just the unspoken reservation behind most
conversations. Anything we can do to bring reassurance and harmony
would help.
You have been my resource for all of the planning to date, and I
thought you were the most likely to be able to guide me now.
Thanks for your help.