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Intro Mary Garden
Mary Gardener of Love
A Tribute to Bonnie Roberson, of Hagerman, Idaho (1907-1983)
John S. Stokes Jr.
. Through her great love for Mary
and for gardening, Bonnie Roberson of
Hagerman, Idaho, who assumed the
primary responsibility for carrying
forward the work of Mary's Gardens from
1968 until her death in 1983, was
treasured by us - her co-workers - as
"the heart of Mary's Gardens".
Bonnie came to this work by way of
a love for cooking, and for the wide
variety of culinary herbs she grew in
her kitchen garden for freshness and
delicacy of flavoring. From her faith
that God created the world to show
forth and share with us his goodness,
she was in constant awe that the
flavors of foods were a wonderful
part of this sharing, according to the biblical exhortation to
"Taste and see how sweet is the Lord," such that in eating we are
in a way communing with the Father. From this she had likewise
come to the realization that bitter flavors were a reminder that
through them we are likewise in communion with Christ who has
united himself with us in taking all our sorrows and sufferings
upon himself on the Cross, together with those of all the world.
She marveled at the contribution of herbs to all this, and then,
from her reading of the lore of these herbs, she learned of the
names, symbolisms, legends and other religious associations of
herbs and also of other plants.
With this came her discovery that the many plants which had
Christian names and associations from medieval times - derived from
the perceived symbolism of their forms, colors and growth - were
not just curious or interesting lore, but gently prompted religious
thought and meditation as one worked with them in the garden.
She discovered from her experience that plants for which such
religious associations have been mellowed through the centuries
possess, like the plants mentioned in the Bible, a certain unction
- thanks to the correspondences between nature and the spiritual
world, both created through the eternal Word of God through whom
were made all things in heaven and on earth. Later she would
discover that when plants of this unction were liturgically
blessed, they acquired a still further quality for lifting hearts
to religious thought.
In the course of these discoveries Bonnie marveled at the
many flowers associated with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and then
learned of the custom of planting Mary Gardens comprised entirely
of plants with Marian and other Christian religious symbolism
composed around a focal figure of the Virgin or Virgin and Child.
With a rush of joy she realized that her lifetime love of
Mary, and now her new-found love of plant lore, had come together
as one - in the garden, in the kitchen, in her filling of her house
with herbs and Flowers of Our Lady, and in the enrichment of her
religious thought and life. Many articles and press reports about
her herb- and Mary-Gardening have paid just tribute to her
enthusiasm and the scope of her research and work; but what comes
to mind in retrospect is above all her great love, which was seen
by all as the quality of her life.
St. Louis de Montfort identifies true devotion to Mary as
interior, tender, holy, constant and disinterested (not seeking
bodily or temporal favors). We have received numerous letters from
persons exhibiting such devotion - who, as one correspondent
expressed it, wished in all simplicity "to plant a pretty garden
for our Holy Mother". Bonnie lived such devotion totally through
the years, as was evident to all with whom she came in contact, of
many beliefs and philosophies.
To share her love of herbs and their lore with others, Bonnie,
with the committed assistance of her husband, Ernie, had expanded
her kitchen garden into an herb nursery, the "Garden of Memories",
in which she grew herbs for sale - at the nursery and then by mail
order - as a means of communicating her love, through conversation,
correspondence and plants, to all who came to her as a source for
herbs. A page from her catalog capsulizes some of the lore and
culinary tips she used to communicate. Bonnie's love, as expressed
through her love for plants, was seen as the love of a total giving
and sharing of oneslf with others which overcomes all the personal
differences and social alienations of the world, for the building
of God's Peaceable Kingdom.
Upon learning of the custom of planting Mary Gardens, Bonnie
planted a magnificent 20 by 60 ft. Herb Mary Garden with a
sculpture of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, by liturgical artist Ade
Bethune, as a focal figure. Visible from the highway, this garden
stopped many passing motorists, who came to inquire about it - all
receiving a personally conducted tour of the garden by Bonnie and a
gift of a plant to take home with them. Word of her Mary Garden
spread throughout the state, bringing numerous visitors from afar,
including her bishop who spent an afteroon in conversation with her
in the garden. And shortly she was invited to exhibit a miniature
replica of the garden at an annual meeting of the Herb Society
of America in Washington, D.C..
Of the numerous articles written about Bonnie, one which
perhaps best conveys a sense of her love, poured into her work with
herbs and flowers, is "Hagerman Woman Expert Herbalist", written
for the Twin Falls Times-News "Valley Life" section by staff
writer, Stephanie Schorow, after a visit with aging Bonnie in her
garden in 1980. This was at a time when physical infirmity had
necessitated a reduction of Bonnie's outdoor gardening, including
the giving up of both the Garden of Memories nursery and also her
large Mary Garden - from which she gave away most of her plants -
in favor of her kitchen garden of vegetables and herbs (she had
always herself grown and preserved the food for herself and her
husband, Ernie) and a small herb and flower nursery.
With this Bonnie transfered the focus of her Mary Gardening
devotion to indoor windowsill Mary Gardens and to the continuation
of her untiring research for some four hours each day and evening
in her library of religious and gardening books - a library
constantly augmented through searches made for her by a dozen or so
rare book specialists.
Indoors her windowsills were filled with dish Mary Gardens,
each designed with miniature flowering plants composed around a
ceramic figurine - selected from her collection of hundreds,
expressing her special devotion to the Virgin and Child, and to the
Woman Clothed With The Sun giving birth in heaven.
During this period Bonnie composed a number of Dish Mary
Gardens for the various liturgical seasons and feasts of the year
for which, with photographs, she wrote descriptions for publication
each month of 1977 by her diocesan newspaper - each with Plants of
Our Lady appropriate to a feast, such as miniature cacti for Our
Lady of Guadalupe, nativity plants for Christmas, miniature roses
for Our Lady of Lourdes, plants of the Sorrowful Mysteries for
Lent, etc. She also prepared exhibits of twenty or so such gardens
exhibited together in rows on "bleachers" at several annual state
meetings of the Idaho Council of Catholic Women.
In the course of this Bonnie designed tactile and fragrant
dish Mary Gardens for the Blind, and received a grant to plant an
outdoor raised-bed garden at the Idaho State School for the Blind
in Gooding.
Constrained by the limited window space in their modest home,
Bonnie providentially came upon an opportunity to obtain a grant
for the construction of a small solar greenhouse - "Our Lady's
Solar Greenhouse" - on the sunny south side of the house, in which
she could grow, with a minimum of physical exertion, a larger
number of Flowers of Our Lady, including many from the tropics not
suited for outdoors in her northern climate. For devotional focus,
Bonnie placed in the greenhouse two larger figures of Mary, both
associated with the sun: Our Lady of Guadalupe, representing the
"Woman Clothed with the Sun" of the Book of Revelations, and Our
Lady of Fatima, of the "Miracle of the Sun".
Through the years Bonnie wrote hundreds of inspirational
personal letters of love in response to inquiries about the Flowers
of Our Lady and Mary Gardens which came in from all over the United
States and Canada, and also from Europe, Latin America, Japan and
Australia. She especially treasured her extensive correspondence
with our Irish Mary's Gardens Associate, Brother Sean MacNamara of
the Christian Brothers and former President of the Irish Garden
Association, who joined our work in 1972. She also wrote a number
of articles, in 1971, 1976 and 1977, on the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary Gardens as she perceived them, including a final one written in
1982, on invitation, for the fiftieth aniversary issue of the Herb
Society of America's annual publication, The Herbarist.
Bonnie considered as the culmination of her life's work the
restoration in 1982, for its golden jubilee, of the original
planting arrangement of the mother Mary Garden at the Angelus Tower
of St. Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts,
founded in 1932 - to which she contributed a number of plants from
her nursery beds in Hagerman; and the founding in 1983 of the large
Mary Garden of raised beds and grotto at Our Lady's Shrine in Knock,
Ireland, which she had urged in correspondence with Msgr. James
Horan, Shrine Director.
With advancing age and infirmity, Bonnie after two years was
unable to care for the greenhouse; but she carried her constant
love for Mary and plants even to her death bed, where she received
the gift of the heavenly fragrance - saying to her sister seated by
her side, "Can't you smell it?".
After her death, a Mary's Gardens associate who had been close
to Bonnie during her life on earth raised his thoughts to her in
heaven, entertaining the query, "How does heaven compare with the
way we envisaged it when you were on earth", upon which the words
came: "There is so much more love!"
o O o
The following summary of the linked references in the above text,
sets forth in outline form Bonnie's simple, direct, presentation of
Mary-Gardening to various audiences as a work of loving devotion:
Plantings at her Hagerman Home and Garden as seen by others:
1958 - Fragrance, Flavor and Fun Featured in Hagerman Herb Garden
1962 - A Garden Full of Aves
1980 - Hagerman Woman Expert Herbalist
1983 - Our Lady's Solar Greenhouse
Writings by her for Marian and Herb Publications:
1964 - Why We Grow Herbs
1964 - Idaho State School Garden
1971 - Mary's Garden: Say It With Flowers
1976 - Mary Gardens - Shrines of Beauty and Inspiration
1977 - Mary Gardens
1982 - Mary Gardens - The Herbs and Flowers of the Virgin Mary
Exhibit and Dish Mary Gardens
1962 - Herb Society of America Annual Convention Exhibit
1964 - Idaho Council of Catholic Women Exhibit
Copyright Mary's Gardens 1997