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                                                Intro Mary Garden

You Can Help

     It is especially hoped, as Rev. Daniel F Dunn, Executive
Secretary of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, asked in
his monthly column, that those learning of the Flowers of Our Lady
will "talk with their friends who have come from other lands,
perhaps in your own home circle, and tell them that we would be
interested to know of any flowers which in their homeland, in their
own tongue, were named after Our Blessed Mother.   Ask them, also,
if particular blossoms were used for certain feasts of Our Blessed
Lady, and what the significance was.  While the Mary names of
flowers still live in their hearts and on their lips, please take
the opportunity to gather these rich traditions.  Send them along
(by e-mail to marysgardens@mgardens.org), so that we may record them
for future generations.  People of years to come will be grateful
to their unknown benefactors who aided in listing the many
devotional practices used by gardeners of many lands in paying
tribute to "the lovely lady, the Mystical Rose, the fairest flower
of the human race."

     Each Mary name should be accompanied by the present day common
name of the same flower and, if possible, by its Latin, botanical
name.

     Sources of information should be given, whether books or
whether localities in which the names are still in current use
today.

     We would like to hear of any Mary Gardens or plantings of the
Flowers of Our Lady at churches, schools, outdoor home shrines or
elsewhere in your neighborhoods; and most of all it is our hope that
you yourself will be able to further the restoration and extension
of the living Mary flower tradition by starting Mary Gardens of your
own.