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Intro Mary Garden
The Mary's Gardens Story
John S. Stokes Jr.
Mary's Gardens was born of the meeting and friendship in
Philadelphia of the writer and Edward A. G. McTague. This came
about in the fall of 1949 at St. Joseph's College (evening)
Institute of Industrial Relations where Ed was teaching a course
in The Postulates of Economics, and I had enrolled in it as a
student. In our personal discussions after class, we discovered
an area of keen mutual interest in the convergence of Ed's
mid-life re-exmination of the Catholic principles of social
justice in respect to his work and political experience; and of
my inquiry, as a Catholic convert, into the resources of my
new-found faith for the promotion of peace, justice and human
cooperation, generally.
Religious Basis of Human Society
Ed and the class addressed the question as to how, if God had
created the material world in love to share his goodness with all
humans, was a sufficiency of material goods to be made available
to all? In this Ed proposed for our consideration that more was
required than the application of laws of supply and demand, wages
and prices, monetary policy and business cycles of conventional
economics; that the ultimate basis of economic justice was a
religious love and repect of all persons as God's creatures,
supported by a religious sense of the world, work and human
society generally as directed to the building of God's Kingdom of
love, peace and justice.
In seeking concrete means for heightening the religious sense
of science, technology industry, and of the equal worth in God's
eyes of all persons - we looked to the arts, crafts and workmen's
guilds of the medieval Age of Faith. We found that in this period
the religious sense of work and society was sustained in a number
of ways: by the use of religious names, symbols, dedications and
blessings as an integral part of the work place and materials; by
mutual works of love and mercy among guild members and their
families; by the establishment of regular occasions on which guild
members worshipped together; and by periodic pilgrimages to
cathedrals and religious shrines - all within the round of feast
day celebrations and festivals of the Church throughout the
liturgical year.
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens Discovered
After the end of the school year in the spring, Ed and I
continued to meet as friends in our exploration of these matters;
and during one of my visits with him at the new home he and his
family had just moved into, he showed me some marigolds he had
planted in his backyard garden. When I alluded to their name as a
contraction of the original "Mary's Gold", assuming this was
common knowledge among Catholics, he asked with surprise, "Where
did you get that?" I then mentioned to him having read a 1946
article, "Lillie Tower", by Father James J. Galvin, C.SS.R.,
describing an entire garden of plants named of old as symbols of
the Blessed Virgin - a "Garden of Our Lady", established in 1932
in Woods Hole, Massachusetts by a summer resident, Mrs. Frances
Crane Lillie of Chicago, and visited by him in the 1940's.
Ed said he had never heard of any such flower symbols during
his life as a Catholic, and suggested that maybe they were a
survival from the Age of Faith of the kind we were looking for as
a means which could be used to help in restoring the medieval
religious sense to life in our secular age. "Why not more than
one such garden?"
Visit to Woods Hole Mary Garden
With this in mind, I was able to arrange for a summer
vacation trip a few weeks later to Cape Cod to visit the Woods
Hole Garden of Our Lady, beside the Angelus Tower across the
street from St.Joseph's parish church. With the knowledge of the
symbolical character of the plants, from the list of Mary-names in
Father Galvin's article, my first view, as I entered the gate, of
the beauty of the garden, professionally kept and in full summer
bloom, was breath-taking. On entering the small room at the base
of the tower I came upon the bookshelves of Catholic classics
mentioned in the article, but I found nothing about the flower
names and symbolism. Then, as I approached the garden beds more
closely, there was no posted list of flower names, nor any plant
markers. And in checking the actual plants I found they were the
typical summer plants in the area: of which only one species, in
addition to roses, was among the symbolical plants mentioned in
the article - Mary's Golds.
The beauty of the garden and its setting, together with my
knowledge of the concept behind it, were such that the absence of
the original plants, while a disappointment, in no way diminished
my ideal vision of the garden, or the love engendered by it; and I
then and there embraced Ed McTague's suggestion that maybe we
could do something about restoring to our culture the medieval
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens.
Mary's Gardens Project Conceived and Developed
In the Fall, I re-enrolled in Ed's course on the Postulates of
Economics, and in a free period after class each week we began to
explore the possibility of undertaking some sort of concrete
project whereby we could spread knowledge of the flower symbols of
Our Lady.
As a first step, we set about compiling a documented list of
flower symbols of Mary as the necessary authentic basis for such
a project. On checking the larger Oxford English Dictionary we
found that "Lady", "Lady's" and "Ladies'" were considered as
almost invariably referring to "Our Lady" in flower names, with
parallels for "Notre Dame" in French and "Unser Frau" in German.
With this start, we then checked through some old dictionaries of
plant names in the Zoo-Botany Library of the University of
Pennsylvania, and ended up with a beginning list of some fifty
plants which were documented as once known by such names.
In the course of some further research at the library of the
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, we found in old gardening books
some medieval wood cut illustrations of the Virgin and Child in
enclosed gardens, which were titled "Mary Gardens", from which we
adopted the name of "Mary's Gardens" for our project.
In November of that year, while we were undertaking these
investigations, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of Mary's
Assumption, body and soul, into heaven - adding credibility to her
appearances at Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima, etc. This prompted
a re-examination of Marian doctrine generally, in the course of
which we noted that Mary's flower symbols in the aggregate
constituted a comprehensive mirror of her Life and Mysteries from
Tradition, Scripture and Church teaching.
Gardening as a Prayerful, Religious Work
With this came the realization that for those who gardened,
these beautiful, pure, living flower symbols of Our Lady could
provide a ready means for the quickening of habitual reflection
and meditation on her life and mysteries - as in the praying of
the mysteries of the Rosary; and that this in turn would heighten
recourse to Mary's mediation to the world of the sanctifying and
renewing actual graces so needed for the consolidation in history
of Christ's victory over evil and sin - for the building of God's
earthly Kingdom of love, peace and justice, in which the sharing
of the divine goodness of Creation with all human beings would
become a reality.
With the list of plants at hand, we next turned to several
experienced gardeners for advice in selecting those plants which
were most readily available and easiest of cultivation. This
brought us into contact with horticulturalist, Martha Ludes Garra,
of Philadelphia, who took an immediate and continuing interest in
our project and joined us as an Associate in assembling an initial
"Our Lady's Garden" seed kit of six Flowers of Our Lady suitable
for beginning Mary Gardeners.
Source for Seeds, Bulbs and Plants Located
Our next step was to find a source for these seeds in bulk,
and also for seeds, bulbs and plants for the other flowers on our
list. In this we were fortunate in discovering a nearby
nurseryman and rare seedsman, Rex Pearce of the Pearce Seed
Company of Moorestown, New Jersey, who was able to take care of
these needs for us, including locating sources for seeds and
plants in addition to those listed in his catalog.
With the basic concept of Mary's Gardens and the "Our Lady's
Garden" seed kit worked out, we then looked up the phone number of
Frances Crane Lillie in Chicago and gave her a call one evening in
December. She answered the phone herself and said she was
delighted to learn of our project based on her Garden of Our Lady
in Woods Hole, and offered us her blessing. She explained she was
an invalid, but would ask her nurse to look through her desk for
any materials which would be useful to us. (We later learned that
she was able to have little contact with others than her family,
but providentially, for us, had picked up the phone because she
was expecting a phone call from her daughter in Pennsylvania.) A
few days later we received a copy of a 1932 leaflet, "Our Lady in
Her Garden", Mrs. Lillie had written giving the original list of
plants she hoped to have in the garden.
Mary' Gardens Inaugurated
Selecting as our inaugural date March 7th 1951 - the then
date of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas - we formally registered
Mary's Gardens under the Pennsylvania Fictitious Names Act, and
prepared seed packets, an explanatory leaflet, a prayer card and a
Mary Garden photo card for an introductory "Our Lady's Garden"
seed kit, for which Ed McTague wrote the following introductory
paragraphs:
"Inspiration
"Mindful of Tradition and teaching, Mary's Gardens is an act of
faith. By "Our Lady's Garden" is meant first of all the
package which you receive of the postman. That garden is an
appeal to the heart. May it be that as you read the names and
descriptions of the Flowers of Our Lady they may bloom
spiritually within your interior life. Then, with your garden
stewardship, foliage, buds and blooms will come of God's
creatures the seeds, in due season and according to his
established order.
"Profound inspiration for we two who have founded Mary's
Gardens has come of the valiant deed of a gentle woman, Mrs.
Frank R. Lillie, who in the early thirties established a Garden
of Our Lady in . . . Woods Hole, Massachusetts. That garden
grows flowers bearing the name of Mary, flowers named to recall
some attribute of Mary or some mystery of her life.
"Two bells of the garden's tower ring out the Angelus, tolling
we believe to remind all to live to the greater glory of God
and, for this, to restore all things in Christ. So be it."
We then sent out announcements to Catholic and gardening
publications of the mail order availability of our "Our Lady's
Garden" introductory seed kit, and placed little one-inch ads in
the gardening sections of the Sunday New York Times and New York
Herald Tribune (now defunct), and also in the national Catholic
weeklies, Our Sunday Visitor and The Denver Register - asking a
nominal price of $1.00 to help cover costs.
Our Own First Mary Gardens Planted
Being spring planting time by then, we set about starting our
own first home Mary Gardens, and in obtaining some plants from a
small neighborhood nursery had our first direct experience with a
number of the symbolical flowers of our research, which we had
previously known only by their names, descriptions, and in some
cases, photographs. It was an unforgettable experience of love
thus to behold the blooms and foliage of "Our Lady's Pincushion"
(Thrift, Armeria maritima) and "Our Lady's Tears" (Spiderwort,
Tradescantia virginiana). The direct experience of the beauty and
the symbolical forms of these and other plants together, with the
knowledge that their symbolism had come down through the centuries
from the Age of Faith, left us in awe. When we mentioned the
symbolism of "Our Lady's Tears", with its moist pendant
tear-shaped spent blooms, the elderly nurseryman said, "Yes, she's
been crying all day!"
Favorable Reponse to Mary's Gardens Introduction
The notices and ads brought us some 750 orders that spring,
and in addition numerous inquries, inluding two from the editors
of esteemed gardening publications, The Herbarist, of the Herb
Society of America and Horticulture, of the Massachusetts
Horticultural Society - who published scholarly articles the
following year, respectivly: "Mary Gardens" and "Flowers of the
Madonna". The notices also brought us several Catholic authors
who likewise wrote important articles for us the following year,
leading in turn to inquiries from a number of additional authors
and editors.
With the help of family members and parish volunteers, who
generously gave of their evenings, we were able to fill all seed
kit orders and answer all inquiries promptly as they came in.
One day we were visited by a representative of our Chancery
Office, whose concern was that the Mary-names of flowers were
authentic and not some sort of pious invention or fraud for
profit. When we showed him our research documentation, and the
modest price asked for our seed kits, he smiled and gave us his
personal best wishes, saying that our formal status with the
Chancery Office would be one of "toleration" - tolerated
independent lay initiative.
Locally, we were joined by another Associate, Sr. Margaret
Rose, S.S.J., of the Sisters of St.Joseph, who contributed much to
us from her lifetime religious sense of gardening, and whose 7th
Grade Class at St. Hubert's Girls High School in Philadelphia began
the first school Mary Garden. Also, at St. Helena's Church in
Philadelphia, where I frequently attended daily Mass on the way to
my regular employment, I found a delightful surprise - a tiny Mary
Garden in a nook at the rear of the church building, containing
one each of about ten Flowers of Our Lady, which I later learned
had been planted by one of the Sisters of St. Joseph at the parish
convent and school.
Introductory Articles Written
Along with the articles on our work written by others, we
inaugurated a series of articles of our own, continuing unto the
present time, in which we presented and re-presented the Mary
Garden idea, planting instructions and plant lists, as they were
developed through the years. Our first articles, in the 1952
-1954 period: "Gardening For Our Lady", "Flowers of Our Lady",
"Honoring Mary With God's Artistry" and "Man in God's Garden" -
and also our enlarged leaflets, booklets, catalogs and seed kits -
were inspirational and purgative in focus: setting forth the old
religious flower names, religious gardening principles and a
religious perspective of gardening history, in proposed
replacement of prevailing secular and naturalistic gardening
perspectives.
Restoration of Woods Hole Garden Proposed
In the summer of 1951, Ed and I took a trip together to visit
the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady, and by appointment met there
with Dorothea K. Harrison, landscape architect, of Woods Hole and
Boston, who had been commissioned by Mrs. Lillie for five summers,
from 1933 to 1937, to design and perfect the garden, and with
Wilfred K. Wheeler, renowned horticulturalist, nurseryman and
building contractor - authority on the Cape Cod cottage - and
first Agricultural Commissioner of Massachusetts, who had built the
church Angelus Tower in 1929 and planted the garden in 1932, and
whose nurserymen had cared for it professionally ever since.
Mr. Wheeler told us that the garden planting had been
completely destroyed by a 1937 hurricane and the original plant
varieties only partly restored, due to Mrs. Lillie's inability to
give attention to them, due to illness; and then destroyed again
in the l940's, after which the present conventional planting had
been made. However, in response to our interest he volunteered to
restore the original plant varieties, and on inviting us to visit
with him and his wife, Mrs. Lillie's sister, at their home, gave
us the copy Mrs. Lillie had given him of a little book, "The Mary
Calendar" by Judith Smith, of Ditchling, England, in which we later
saw described most of the plants listed in the leaflet Mrs. Lillie
had sent us, and a number of which were included in Dorothea
Harrison's planting plan.
Original Research for Woods Hole Garden Found
Mr. Wheeler also mentioned that extensive research had been
made into religious plant names for Mrs. Lillie by her late
friend, Winifred Jeliffe Emerson of Chicago, and gave us the
address of her husband. He also said that Mrs. Lillie was very
ill, with long periods of mental withdrawal, and there was no
possibility that we could visit with her, although she was at her
summer home in Woods Hole.
On returning to Philadelphia we wrote to Mr. Emerson, who
graciously replied that his late wife's papers were all stored in
his attic but he didn't recall any research about the religious
names of flowers. He mentioned that his sister lived in
Philadelphia, and suggested that we keep in touch. Several years
later he contacted us, saying that he had come across the research
while clearing out his attic to move to a new home, and was
sending it to us as a gift, with permission to use it in any way
we wished, so long as we put it in its "proper historical
perspective".
The Project Develops
For 1952 we enlarged the Our Lady's Garden seed kit to ten
varieties, and, thanks to a number of magazine articles by others,
plus our little ads for the second year, we receved several
thousand inquiries. At this time we also began testing the
germination of several hundred seed varieties obtained from
Pearce, from European rare seed companies and through botanical
garden seed exchanges from all over the world - keeping careful
records of temperatures, germination periods, and numbers of seed
sown and germinated; and then growing the plants to maturity in
our nursery beds.
In 1953 an article in the Catholic Digest - in English and
also six foreign language editions - brought us inquiries from all
over the world. Most notable was an inquiry from Bishop Mongeau
of the Cotabato Diocese in the Philippines, who enlisted our
assistance in setting up a Marian Year Mary Garden competition
among some 20 high schools in his diocese, for the Bishop Mongeau
Mary Garden Trophy. Also in the Philippines, Father Depperman,
S.J., astronomer, established a Mary Garden at the Manila
Observatory.
Around this time we received much interest and encouragement
from Father James Dunne, Executive Director of the National
Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, who wrote
several articles on the Mary's Gardens idea and project for
diocesan weekly papers. Also, Daniel J. Foley, Editor of
Horticulture magazine, wrote an article, "Flowers For The Fairest",
on how to plant a Mary Garden for the Boston Pilot, after I had met
with him one summer at the Garden of Our Lady in Woods Hole.
By 1955 we had enlarged our offering to include seeds, bulbs
and plants, provided by the Pearce Nursery, for some 100 varieties
of Our Lady's Flowers, with a choice of three different Our Lady's
Gardens seed kits and including a 32 page inspirational and plant
description booklet. This remained our offering until 1965, when
our research had found so many Mary-named flowers readily
available from commercial sources that it was no longer necessary
for us to continue offering seeds, bulbs and plants, and we
switched over to sending out plant lists. Since then we have
offered nothing for sale.
Meeting With Frances Crane Lillie
During this period I was able to visit Woods Hole each
summer, and in the summer of 1954 received a surprise phone call
from Father Joseph Stapleton, Pastor of St. Joseph's Church,
saying that when he was bringing Holy Communion to Mrs. Lillie at
her home the previous day he found she had recovered her mental
faculties quite lucidly and that her daughters, wondering what
they could do for her birthday, asked him if he would see whether
I could visit her for tea and tell her about our work at Mary's
Gardens. Overjoyed, I accepted and she was able to spend half an
hour with me. She said she had learned of the Flowers of Our Lady
during visits to monasteries in England, and recalled them when
she was considering what to plant beside the Angelus Tower she
donated to St. Joseph's Church several years later. She said she
no longer remembered the English names and places, and registered
some surprise (as a convert, with little previous familiarity with
Catholic popular culture) that the Flowers of Our Lady were not
well known, and were considered unusual enough that we would want
to take steps to spread knowledge of them. She told us how much
she loved them and how they had given her an insight as to how the
faith was kept alive by the illiterate Catholics of the medieval
countysides. "The flowers were all they had".
Happily, I had just discovered at a local store a Swiss
postal card with a photograph of bleeding heart flowers,
identified by their old names, in French, of "Coeur de Marie", and
in German, of "Frauenhertz", which I presented to her as a
birthday gift, much to her joy.
Mary Garden Idea Further Developed
Among the articles we wrote from 1954 through 1964, were:
"Cape Cod Shrine Mary Garden" setting forth in retrospect the
impressions of my first visit to the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady
in the summer of 1949; "In Search of a Mary Garden Statue"; "St.
Joseph, Patron of Mary's Gardeners"; "Gardening with Mary" -
proposing the potential of the Mary Garden for quickening
ascetical/mystical reflection and growth; "Mary-Gardening with St.
Francis"; "Mary's Gardens" - a comprehensive overview as of 1962;
and "God's Garden", a new review of gardening history.
In these articles we first set forth how the Flowers of Our
Lady were the "heart" of the Mary Gardens, having an illuminative
beauty and lucency which quicken the beholder to love for Mary and
to imaginative reflection and meditation on her life and
mysteries. We then described how the Mary Garden presents a
mosaic of these living flower symbols of love for Mary around her
statue or shrine, so that in visiting or working in the garden we
reflect more comprehensively, as in praying the mysteries of the
Rosary, on her blessed fullness of the grace, virtues and
excellences of her chosen and accepted motherhood of and initmate
union and close cooperation with her divine Son and Lord, on earth
and assumed into heaven. We then described how this loving
reflection on Mary leads us to turn to her in prayer and
supplication as our immaculate co-redemptrix, advocate, mediatrix
of all graces, nurturing spiritual mother, and Queen of heaven and
earth - for our sanctification, and for our inspiration and
strengthening in our works of mercy and the building of God's
earthly Kingdom of love, peace and justice for the greater
sharing, showing forth and return of God's glory.
Research Published
In the Fall of 1954, shortly after my visit with Mrs. Lille,
I spent two weeks in Chicago on business, and while there was able
to visit with Father James M. Keane, OSM, of the Servite Fathers,
the then "television priest" of Chicago, who had corresponded with
us extensively earlier in the year. When I told him of my visits
to Woods Hole and the story of Emerson research, he asked if I
would write two articles for the magazine he edited, "Queen of the
Missions": one about my first impressions on visiting the Garden
of Our Lady, and the other telling about our research and Mrs.
Emerson's with an accompanying listing and documentation of our
entire research to date. These two articles, "Cape Cod Mary
Garden" and "Mary's Gardens Research - A Progress Report" were
published the following Spring, together with a long article he
himself wrote on our work. I also enjoyed a meal with Father
Keane and friends at his mother's home; gave several lectures at
Servite parishes; and attended a taping of his weekly TV program -
on the Rosary. And while in Chicago I also visited with Pat and
Pattie Crowley, of the Christian Family Movement, who had
corresponded with us, and who gave me the addresses of CFM members
to look up in San Francisco, my next business stop.
In 1954 and 1955 we assisted in our first shrine Mary Garden
planting, by Father Thomas A. Stanley, SM, at the Our Lady of
Lourdes Grotto, Mount St. John, Dayton, which included fifty-four
Flowers of Our Lady.
Motivational Articles from Our Experience
Starting in the fall of 1954, we undertook, as our own
understanding deepened, a continuing series of illuminative,
inspirational articles, beginning with "In Mary's Garden": the
account of our experience with the Flowers of Our Lady in a home
Mary Garden, setting forth the teaching and inspirational
potential of the Flowers of Our Lady and their care for small,
pre-school children. Each of these articles presented the basic
Mary Garden idea for a new audience, together with our developing
insights, as the articles were written.
In 1962 we wrote "A Garden Full of Aves", describing the work
of assisting others in planting Mary Gardens by Bonnie Roberson,
of Hagerman, Idaho - renowned as a grower of herbs. Bonnie joined
us in our work in 1957; displayed a miniature replica of her Mary
Garden at the annual meeting of The Herb Society of America in
1962 at Washington, D.C.; and developed indoor Dish Mary Gardens
using tropical house plants found to be named for Mary.
Garden Statuary
In 1953, in reponse to many reqests, we designed, as a Mary
Garden focal shrine, a small pole or wall mountable wayside shrine
shelter with a Hummell ceramic figure of the Virgin and Child,
which we made available at cost.
Then, on attending the 1956 annual convention of the Catholic
Art Association in Albany, I met liturgical artist Ade Bethune
of the St. Leo Shop of Newport, Rhode Island, widely known for her
woodcut illustrations in The Catholic Worker newpaper, who
offered to do a garden sculpture for Mary's Gardens. Ed and I
were delighted to accept this offer, and commissioned her to do a
sculpture of the Virgin and Child of her design, which she
executed the following year in Belgium: a frontal figure of Mary,
Seat of Wisdom, in the tradition of the Madonna in Majesty of the
Romanesque Auvergne wood carvings and the Gothic stone tympanni of
the Gothic cathedrals. We arranged for plaster molds to be made
from the original and for ceramic stoneware replicas to be cast in
the pottery town of Trenton, New Jersey, and offered them at cost,
receiving around 100 orders.
The following year we commisioned Ade to do a companion
sculpture of St. Joseph, Garden Workman - the Church having just
extended St. Joseph's patronage from carpenters to all workmen,
celebrated in the feast of St. Joseph, Worker on May 1st. In this
she followed our suggestion of a kneeling figure with gardening
trowel in one lowered hand and the lily of "St. Joseph's Staff"
clasped to his breast by the other.
Ade herself had a beautiful Mary Garden, designed around both
figures, in Newport.
To make the sculptures better known, along with our
respective other offerings, Ade and we shared display booths at
the 1962 and 1963 conventions of the Catholic Liturgical Society,
in Cincinnati and Philadelphia. Included in the Mary's Gardens
diplay were color slide rear projections of flowers and gardens,
and a number of miniature dish Mary Gardens following designs
developed by Mary's Gardens Associate, Bonnie Roberson of
Hagerman, Idaho.
Flowers of Our Lady in German Research
In 1964 the two index volumes were published of Marzell's
Deutsches Worterbuch der Pflanzenamen - a monumental work,
published by volumes ("Bands") in Leipzig starting in the 1930's
and, after interruption by World War II, completed in the 1970's.
These listed hundreds of Flowers of Our Lady, in German, providing
many new plant varieties, a number commonly grown, for inclusion
in our lists, in English translation. This large number of
religious plant names from the medieval oral folk traditions of
the Bavarian countrysides were preserved, with the advent of
printing, in gardening books thanks to the continuity of Catholic
tradition there, in contrast to England where the gardening books
were written after the Reformation by anti-Catholic, anti-Marian
authors who censored out most of the English Marian names of
plants, leaving them to be discovered later from oral tradition by
botanists and folklorists. We added these names to those of our
previous research in a list of over 600 plants in "Mariana I",
published by us privately in 1964.
Also in 1964 we wrote an article, "Galega Officinalis - An
Adventure in Plant Naturalization": our first article for a
professional biological journal, describing how hundreds of one of
the "Holy Hay" forage plants - so named for a legend that it burst
into bloom in the manger at Bethlehem when the Infant Savior was
laid on it - was naturalized in a suburban Philadelphia meadow
from a few seeds we had scattered some five years before, and
subsequently discovered by botanists.
Mary Garden Planted at Parish School
In 1964 I designed, at the request of my Pastor, Father John
Casey, OSA, a Mary Garden at the school of Our Mother Of
Consolation Parish in Philadelphia. This Mary Garden - dug,
planted and blessed in April of 1965 - was the first we had
designed incorporating plants from the fuller list of Mariana I.
The parish custodian, William Morgan, and I maintained the garden
for seven years, until he retired and I moved out of the parish.
Mary's Gardens Moved to Idaho
At the end of 1964 I accepted an offer of the position of
founding Executive Director of an interfaith ecumenical center in
Philadelphia. This required an around-the-clock commitment, which
mad it difficult for me to keep up with our Mary's Gardens
inquiries and development, in which Ed McTague was no longer able
to help due to illness; but happily Bonnie Roberson offered to
take on the correpondence and research from her home in Idaho -
which became the Mary's Gardens headquarters from 1965 through her
death in 1983.
For Bonnie's assistance, from my ecumenical studies and
experience, I prepared an in-depth study in 1955 and 1956 of the
new perspectives given Marian doctrine and devotion as a
consequence of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, just
completed, which counseled those devoted to Mary:
"Let them avoid the falsity of exaggeration . . . .
"Let them painstakingly guard against any word or deed which
could lead separated brethren or anyone else into error
regarding the doctrine of the Church. Let the faithful
remember moreover that true devotion consists neither in
fruitless and passing emotions, nor in a certain vain
credulity,"
- emphasizing, rather, the "intimate union and close cooperation"
of Mary with her Divine Son and Lord.
In this we discerned from our experience that the "falsity of
exaggeration", "error regarding doctrine" and "vain credulity" of
some Marian devotion, lay in a failure to distinguish between what
was God's: the graces and glories with which Mary was filled, and
the bestowed divine privileges and prerogatives of her Immaculate
Conception, her Divine Motherhood, her Perpetual Virginity, her
co-redemption with Christ, her Assumption body and soul into
Heaven, her spiritual motherhood and nurturing of Christians and
the Church, her Protection from evil, her Advocacy and
Intercession, her Mediation of all graces and her Queenship of
Heaven and Earth - and what was Mary's: her hearing of the word of
God and keeping it, her doing of the will of the heavenly father,
her maidenly spirituality, her fiat in response to the angel's
Annunciation, her motherly sorrow and immolation of heart in love
for Jesus, her fidelity to the graces of her privileges and
prerogatives, and her sharing and showing forth ("My soul doth
magnifiy the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior")
of the attributes of the God who was with her.
This review of basic Marian doctrine in the light of the
Council documents gave us the reassurance needed to carry forward
our work in the period immediately following the Council when not
only was false devotion to Our Lady pruned out of Catholic
spirituality, but also even true devotion was often diminished "to
get along with Protestants" in ecumenical dialog and cooperation.
Reearch For Indoor Dish Mary Gardens
Bonnie wrote many articles describing her vision of Mary's
Gardens and her development of Dish Mary Gardens, culminating in a
1977 article, "Mary Gardens". To find a variety of symbolical
plants for dish Mary Gardens, Bonnie did extensive research into
the old Spanish religious names of plants in Central and South
America - given to them by missionaries drawing on European
custom and teaching method, and recorded later by botanists
cataloging the plants of the region together with the names by
which they were known locally, in botanical "floras". By 1983 the
combined all-volunteer work of the Philadelphia and Idaho Mary's
Gardens headquarters had answered some 30,000 inquiries.
Flower Show Exhibit Mary Garden
In 1968 I devoted a week's vacation to working with Mary's
Gardens Associate, Martha Ludes Garra, in setting up and
presenting an exhibit Mary Garden at the Philadelphia Flower Show
in April of that year, on invitation of Ernesta D. Ballard,
Executive Secretary of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society,
managers of the show. This furthered our dual objective of
obtaining recognition from both the religious and the gardening
communities.
Later that year, while in the mountain states, I was able to
visit Bonnie Roberson and her husband, Ernie, in Idaho,
reciprocating her visit with me and my family in Philadelphia in
1962 preparatory to our setting up of her display Mary Garden for
the Herb Society of America annual meeting held that year in
Washington, D.C.
In 1971, we were able to present a one-hour segment on the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens , "Flower Power", including
the slide projection display of flowers and gardens, for the
ecumenical and social issues weekly television discussion program,
Input, produced for the Philadelphia CBS affiliate.
Brother Sean MacNamara Joins Mary's Gardens As Irish Associate
In 1972 we were joined in the work of Mary's Gardens by an
Irish Associate, Brother Sean MacNamara, of the Christian Brothers
in Dublin. Brother Sean contacted us after reading some of
our articles republished in Ireland. Like Bonnie Roberson,
Brother Sean brought us valued professional horticultural
experience - as botanical researcher, flower show judge, and past
President and Director of the Irish Garden Society. He had also
written the definitive botanical study of the famous multi-climate
Burren of County Clare, and a study of Irish devotion to the
Blessed Virgin Mary - thus offering a combination of both
horticultural and religious competence. In the 1970's Brother
wrote numerous articles on the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Gardens in Ireland; and undertook original research into the Irish
"Mhuire" plants - plants named for Mary in medieval Gaelic. In this
period Bonnie and Brother Sean worked in close cooperation in
researching and spreading Mary-Gardening.
In 1980 I completed other work and re-joined Bonnie Roberson
in carrying forward the day-to-day work of Mary's Gardens. We
corresponded extensively, by letter and tape, to "bring me up to
speed" in repect to her research and correspondence and to her
assistance of numerous persons and institutions in her area in
starting Mary Gardens, including the Boise Episcopal Cathedral.
Restoration of Woods Hole Garden for 1982 Golden Jubilee
On visiting Woods Hole in the summer of 1981 I met, after
Sunday Mass at St. Joseph's Church, Jane A. McLaughlin of Woods
Hole, who told me she was writing a history of St. Joseph's
Church, the first parish on Cape Cod, for the centennnial of its
founding, to be celebrated in the following summer of 1982. She
said she had been attempting to get in touch with us to see if we
could provide information about the founding of the Garden of Our
Lady, from our Mary's Gardens files and journal governing our
visits with Dorothea K. Harrison and Wilfred L. Wheeler in the
early 1950's, about which she had learned. I told her that our
journal notes and files were all intact, and that I would be
delighted to make photo copies of them for her and for the Woods
Hole Historical Society archives - pointing out that the
centennial of St. Joseph's, founded in 1882, was also the 50th,
Golden Jubilee of the founding of the Garden of Our Lady in 1932.
In preparing the materials for Jane during the ensuing
several months, I took the opportunity to make a general review of
our work and to include numerous general documents and photos.
For her part, in the course of reviewing our correspondence with
Dorothea K. Harrison and the planting plans and photographs she
had sent us, Jane decided to make a restoration of the Garden
of Our Lady planting for the centennial and jubilee - according to
Dorothea's final plan, #10, of 1937. We were able to assist her
in this, particularly in locating the original rose varieties
specified; and Bonnie Roberson provided some of the rarer herbs
from her Idaho nursery, and also the Madonna Lilies.
From my review, I wrote an extensive article about Mrs.
Lillie's conception and start of the Garden of Our Lady, "Coming
Mary Garden Jubilee"; and then, after the actual Jubilee Mass and
celebration, presided over by Bishop Daniel Cronin of Fall River,
another article, "Mary Garden Jubilee" - both published in Queen
of All Hearts magazine, of the Montfort Missionaries, whose
Executive Editor, Father Roger M. Charest, SM, had been a
consistent supporter of our work from the beginning - publishing
ten or so articles on or mentioning the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary Gardens through the years - most recently an article
mentioning the three acre Mary Garden of sculptured shrubs and
trees at the Akita Shrine of Our Lady in Japan.
The "Mary Garden Jubilee" article included "A Mary Garden
Prayer", petitioning a number of the gardening saints - composed
jointly by Jane McLaughlin, Bonnie Roberson, Brother Sean
MacNamara and myself (Ed McTague having died in 1973). Through
the years this was revised and added to, reflecting our developing
insights into Mary Gardening. Also in this article, and in
another article written the following year, "Ruta Graveolens: Herb
of Grace", we published a number of flower and garden sacramental
blessings, including several of the Roman Rite from the "Rural
Life Prayer Book" of the Catholic Rural Life Conference, and also
the Dominican blessing of roses, and the Servite blessing of
flowers on Holy Saturday for the processional crowning of Mary's
statues in honor of her joy at Jesus' Resurrection.
Also at this time I wrote an article, "Medieval Countryside
in a Garden" describing Dorothea Harrison's horticultural
challenge in planting the Woods Hole Garden of Our Lady.
Previously unpublished since religious magazines considerd it "too
horticultural" and gardening magazines considered it "too
religious", it is now posted to our Internet web site.
Knock Shrine Mary Garden Planted
In this period, Bonnie Roberson had been in correspondence
with Msgr. James Horan, Director of Our Lady's Shrine at Knock,
County Clare, in Ireland, urging him to plant a Mary Garden there,
and when Msgr. Horan read a review written by Brother Sean of the
Mary Garden chapter in Jane's centennial History of St. Joseph's
Church in an Irish Catholic weekly, he wrote to Father James P.
Dalzell, Pastor of St. Joseph's, requesting a list of plants with
which to start such a garden around the shrine's new Blessed
Sacrament Chapel. At Father Dalzell's request, Jane sent a list
of Flowers of Our Lady to Msgr. Horan, who then assigned shrine
horticulturalist, Ann Hopkins Lavin, to design and plant the
garden. The result, in 1983, was a Mary Garden of seven raised
beds, with an Our Lady of Knock grotto, surrounding and adjacent
to the chapel. Subsequently Msgr. Horan requested of Brother Sean
that he augment the planting plan to include more indigenous Irish
Flowers of Our Lady, as a National Irish Mary Garden. And in
1987, Ann Lavin made an extensive planting of Flowers of Our Lady
throughout the entire shrine grounds, making the entire shrine, as
it were, one grand Mary Garden.
Around that time, the Pastor of Our Lady's Church in
Wangeratta, Victoria, Australia, visited Knock and was inspired to
plant a beautiful parish Mary Garden of raised design, similar to
the raised beds at Knock, with circular brick retaining wall -
making it easier for visitors to view, at waist height, the
symbolism of lower growing plants.
In 1988 Brother Sean and I wrote two articles, "Knock Mary
Garden" and "Knock: Flowers of Mary's Presence" for United States
audiences, published together in Queen magazine, illustrated with
photos taken by Father Charest, Executive Editor, on a Knock
pilgrimage.
Hopes for British Mary Gardens
During the mid 1980's Brother Sean forwarded to me an
illustrated leaflet published by The Flower Arranger magazine in
London, which decribed a Planting of Flowers of Our Lady in the
cloister of Lincoln Cathedral in Yorkshire - planted and
maintained by members of the Lincoln Herb Society. As a
consequence of this I corresponded with The Flower Arranger and
also with officers and members of the Anglican Society of Mary,
hoping to find someone who might become a Mary's Gardens Associate
supporting the planting of other Mary Gardens in England, as
Brother Sean was doing in Ireland. In the course of this I wrote
an article, "Plants of the Virgin Mary", published in the Anglican
Society Of Mary's magazine, AVE in 1984. So far we have not found
anyone to take up this work in England, but continue with the
vision and fond hope that one day the magnificent tradition of
flower gardening in England will be extended to include the
planting of Mary Gardens.
Annapolis Parish Mary Garden
In 1968 Jane McLaughlin, on request, provided plant lists and
assistance to Nanette P. Sears of St.Mary's Parish in Annapolis,
Maryland, for the planting of a large parish Mary Garden there,
adjacent to historic Carroll House. When, at Jane's suggestion,
Nanette Sears contacted me for further assistance, I entered into
extensive correspondence with her with a view both to helping
establish a model parish Mary Garden at this historic spot, and to
exploring with her and her associates means whereby the garden
would be incorporated as an integral part of parish and community
life, and would engender a continuing and growing supportive
Marian devotion and commitment which would serve, through a Mary
Garden Guild, to perpetuate the garden indefinitely - namely,
until the end of the world.
Dublin Memorial Mary Garden
In 1992 Brother, recently retired from his teaching and school
administration with the Christian Brothers, was asked by his
superiors to plant a memorial Mary Garden at the burial plot of
the Artane Oratory of the Resurrection in Dublin. This Mary
Garden - designed and planted entirely by Bother Sean - is a
horticultural masterpiece, representing a culmination of his
lifetime love of Mary, flowers and gardening, with an exquisite
selection of species plants, together with developed strains and
hybrids, of Flowers of Our Lady. Together we wrote an illustrated
leaflet setting forth the memorial intention of the planting,
together with the contribution to this of the Flowers of Our Lady
and their symbolism.
Mary's Gardens on the Internet World Wide Web
In 1995 it became clear that a Mary's Gardens Internet web
site would enable us to share our work - our vision, research,
writings and library of color slide photos - with a wider audience
than had been possible through ads (discontinued in 1960),
articles, lectures and exhibits. Happily, we had had over ten
years of computer word processing, color graphics and on-line
experience which we were able to draw upon for this project; and
after scanning all our texts in digital form, opened up our web
site on the feast of the Nativity of Mary, September 8th. Upon
joining various Internet and on-line Catholic newsgroups and
forums concurrently, we perceived that with our over forty years
of proposing devotion to Mary and recourse to her in prayer, and
with our extensive examination of the mirroring of Marian theology
in her flower symbols, we were in a position to contribute to
on-going discussions of Marian doctrine and devotion, and
therefore began to follow these forums regularly - learning much,
and developing a number of on-line correspondents.
Also, in posting our materials to the web site, we realized
the need for overview articles, and wrote, "Flower Theology", "The
Garden Way of the Rosary" and now this "The Mary's Gardens Story".
Upon the completion of the posting of all our materials from
the print media in the next several months, we hope to update our
published research documentation of 1955 to incorporate the
additional research from our card files, now over one thousand
plants; to update our 1955 flower data base to include additional
plant varieties suitable for cultivation; to list commercial
sources for seeds, bulbs and plants for each specific plant
variety; and to prepare state-of-the art color graphics of
representative garden planting plans.
Woods Hole as Mother Mary Garden
It should be noted from all the above that Frances Crane
Lillie's Garden of Our Lady at the Angelus Tower of St. Joseph's
Church in Woods Hole has been and continues to be the Mother Mary
Garden of the contemporary Mary Garden world wide restoration. It
was the inspiration for the founding of Mary's Gardens of
Philadelphia 45 years ago, and today, thanks to information
provided, on inquiry, by the pastors of St. Joseph's through Jane
McLaughlin, continues to be the direct source of inspiration for
notable Mary Gardens, as for example Knock and Annapolis.
In addition to writing the history of the Mary Garden for the
Centennial "History of St. Joseph's Parish", and serving as prime
mover for the restoration of the original garden planting, Jane
McLaughlin has written chapters on the garden for major books on
Woods Hole and Falmouth - "Woods Hole Reflections" and "The Book
of Falmouth" - and, most recently, the 18 page carefully
documented monograph, "The Angelus Bell Tower and Mary Garden in
Woods Hole" in "Spritsail", the annual publication of the Woods
Hole Historical Collection.
Summing It All Up
After 45 years we remain confirmed in our original view of
the need for the re-spiritualization of social and economic life -
wherein all work, like gardening, is to be regarded as a
stewardship for God's Creation; all invention and innovation, like
the selection and hybridizing of flowers, as a participation in
God's creativity; and all exchange of goods, like the exchange of
seeds and plants among gardeners, as the material basis for the
exchange of graces and the circulation of the Spirit - through
Mary, Mediatrix of all graces - as "grace builds on nature".
In a way this is an insight from one of the more profound
symbolisms of marigolds, Mary's Golds, which, growing in Ed
McTague's garden, inspired the starting of Mary's Gardens: seen
first of all as symbols, like the "marigold windows" of the Gothic
cathedrals, of Mary's heavenly glorification as the "Woman Clothed
With The Sun" of Revelations; but also, according to an old
legend, as Mary's coins - pure, radiant, flower symbols signifying
her use of money, in Nazareth and in Egypt, as a medium of
spiritual as well as material exchange. Thus, as we behold Mary's
Gold in the garden we are called to examine whether our economic
exchange of money and goods is used for the just sufficiency and
prosperity of all.
As this is written I recall, with striking significance, a
visit to Oxford, England some years ago where I noted above the
entrance to an old building at a corner of the main intersection,
now occupied by a branch of Barclay's Bank, the building name,
"Marigold House".
Finally, through the undertaking of Mary's Gardens, we have
come to a general appreciation of Mary' blessed role in the Divine
Plan for the world, as Mediatrix of All Graces - both of
sanctifying graces, and of the gratuitous promptings and
electional graces of the Holy Spirit so needed for our inspiration
and guidance in renewing the face of the earth and in building
God's Kingdom of love, peace, justice and sufficiency, in the
fallen but redeemed world.
The key to this appreciation has been found in our faith,
following the teachings of St.Thomas Aquinas, on whose (old) feast
day, March 7th, Mary's Gardens was founded, that God's purpose in
creating the universe was to show forth and share, to the fullest,
the divine goodness, of attributes and action, with human beings
created for this purpose in the divine image and likeness, male
and female. And in this, Mary's fidelity to the purity and
spiritual openness of her Immaculate Conception made possible her
blessed female fullness of human sharing and cooperating as
co-redeemer, co-advocate and co-mediatrix in the redemption,
advocacy and mediation of her divine Son, Our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity
true God and true man - in fulfillment, male and female, of the
divine purpose of Creation.
Copyright, Mary's Gardens, 1996
o O o
Appended 2003 Summary and Update
Mary's Gardens is a not-for-profit spare time prayerful religious
work registered under the Pennsylvania Fictitious Names Act as a
partnership of Edward A. G. McTague and myself to do business as
Mary's Gardens, of which I am the surviving partner, after 53
years.
The project was inspired by our learning through a 1947 magazine
article of the Flowers of Our Lady and their planting in 1932 by
Frances Crane Lillie of Chicago and Woods Hole in a Mary Garden
beside the Angelus Tower she donated across the street from St.
Joseph's Church, Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1929. Our goal is
the restoration of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens
worldwide to contemporary religious and gardening culture.
Primary responsibility from 1951 though 1968 was undertaken in
Philadelphia on a spare time basis, with the assistance of
volunteers, by myself and by Ed McTague, who died in 1973, R.I.P.;
and full-time from 1968 to 1983 by Bonnie Roberson of Hagermann,
Idaho, who did in 1983, R.I.P; and since 1983 by myself, now 82,
retired and able to give major time to the work.
To get started in 1951 we offered an introductory "Our Lady's
Garden" literature and seed kit for 10 annuals mail order for
$1.00, and then, in 1955-56 a catalog offering a larger 25 variety
kit, and also, books, a wayside shrine shelter with figurine, and
a seed-starting kit. From this many magazine articles were
written about our work (See the 2000 - "Mary's Gardens Press Files
Listing", which, together with little 2" paid press announcements,
brought in 1,000 or so inqiries each year. In 1959-68 we offered
for sale twe ceramic stoneware garden statues by Ade Bethune:
Mary, Seat of Wisdom and St. Joseph, Garden Workman, of which we
sold over 100.
As mentioned, In 1968, primary responsibility for the project was
taken on by Bonnie Roberson, prominent herb nurserywoman, (who
came to us "through the mail"), who was able to give it, along
with her nursery, full time - and was able to ship plants from her
nursery catalog mail order. She spread Mary Gardens to Europe and
Japan, and undertook extensive research into the tropical Flowers
of Our Lady from Central and South America.
In 1973 Bonnie was actively joined by Bro. Sean MacNamara, C.F.C.,
of the Christian Brothers in Dublin, who spread and continues to
spread knowledge and planting of Mary Gardens in Ireland.
In 1980, retired, I was able to rejoin Bonnie in the work, and
after her death in 1983, through 1995, carried it on primarily
through correspondence with persons starting parish and shrine
public Mary Gardens - following assisting with the restoration of
the Woods Hole Mary Garden to its original planting plan in 1982.
Then, in 1995 I put up the Internet website and e-mail address,
and scanned our magazine articles and color slide photographs for
the website, which, with a number of new self-published articles
and photographs now comprise over 1,000 files. As a consequence
of reduced energy, in my 80's, and in general through "burn-out"
from my part in sending out 40,000 mail answers to inquiries from
1951 - 1983, I now rely on Internet "self-service" and no longer
print, postal mail, or sell anything. We currently are receiving
200,000 website accesses a year, many coming through Internet
search engine queries - showing the general interest "out there".
One of our Associates is considering setting up a website to offer
flower holy cards, books, artifacts etc. for sale.
All our research, developmental, promotional and correspondence
files, now in my possession, will have their permanent location in
the Marian Library of the University of Dayton, whose Mary Page
website contains a number of articles on the Flowers of Our Lady
and Mary Gardens.
In our 53 years, numerous home and parish Mary Gardens have been
established - some of the more exemplary of which are described,
with photos, in website postings. Mary Gardens of public
prominence, in addition to the Woods Hole Garden, include those at
Lincoln Cathedral in England, the Knock Shrine of Our Lady in
Ireland, the Akita Shrine of Our Lady in Japan, and, recently at
the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
in Washington. Also at the University of Dayton. There is a Mary
Garden display at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in
Washington.
At present we are an informal group of some 15 Associates -
keeping in touch through e-mail - each of whom is carrying forward
voluntarily, with no formal commitment or membership, some aspect
of research, writing, lecturing, teaching, consulting or other
other contribution to the restoration of knowledge of and
prayerful recourse to the Medieval Flowers of Our Lady, and to
their planting in Mary Gardens. We have no by-laws, meetings,
budget or contributions, and everyone operates "out-of-pocket".
Our Associate since 1995, Vincenzina Krymow, who came to us
through a copy of our 1955 catalog, has written a definitive book,
"Mary's Flowers, Gardens, Legends and Meditations" - published in
1999 and just re-published in paperback.
In 2000 I added an administered Chat & Photos section to the
website, adapted from e-mail correspondence, to provide guidance
from more direct, hands-on, Mary Garden start-up and development.
We have some excellent entries for home and parish Mary Gardens.
Our current need is for some CHAT presentations of specific school
Mary Gardens, and their incorporation in classroom teaching, for
which I've asked a school principal and several teachers to pull
together some materials, and for which I am writing an extensive
reference for teachers. To this end, one of our Associates has
written a parents' and teachers' guide. I am personally working
on postings of our French and Medieval Latin Flowers of Our Lady
research.