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Intro Mary Garden
EXHIBIT MARY GARDEN,
1968 PHILADELPHIA FLOWER SHOW
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EXHIBIT GARDEN PLANTING PLAN
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EXHIBIT GARDEN PLANT LIST
Common Name Religious Name or Symbolism
1 Ajuga St. Lawrence's Gridiron
2 Bleeding Heart Heart of Jesus; Heart of Mary
3 Candytuft Easter Flower
4 Columbine Our Lady's Shoes; Holy Spirit*
5 Cowslip Primrose Our Lady's Keys*
6 Crab Apple The New Eve
7 Daffodil Mary's Star; Easter Bells
8 Forget-me-not Eyes of Mary
9 Foxglove Our Lady's Gloves or Thimbles
10 Funkia Assumption Lily
11 Grape Hyacinth Lent Flower; Church Steeples
12 Japanese Andromeda Lily-of-the-Valley Bush
13 Lady Tulip Our Lady's Tulip
14 Lavender Mary's Drying Plant
15 Lavender Cotton St. John's Plant
16 Milfoil Our Lord's Back
17 Pansy Our Lady's Delights; Trinity Flowers
18 Peony Mary's Rose*; Pentecost Flower
19 Periwinkle The Virgin's Flower
20 Rosemary Rose of Mary
21 Sage Mary's Shawl
22 Spirea St. Peter's Wreath
23 Spreading Yew Tree of the Cross
24 Sweet Woodruff Our Lady's Bedstraw
2S Thyme The Virgin's Humility
26 Boxwood Candlemas Greens
27 Iris Mary's Sword of Sorrows
* Religious art symbol also
For summer and fall blooms Mary's Golds (Marigolds) would replace
Pansies; Ageratum (St. John's Flower) Forget-me-nots; and
Chrysanthemums (All Saints Flower) Foxgloves.
The focal garden figure of Mary Seat of Wisdom is a ceramic
stoneware casting from the original by liturgical artist, Ade
Bethune of Newport Rhode Island.
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Mary Gardens of medieval times were monastery gardens in which
flowers, with names and symbolism reflecting religious life and
thought, were grown by gardening monks.
Prominent among flowers with religious symbolism were those named
for Mary, the mother of Jesus, and reported as dedicated to her in
early books such as C. Bauhin's Plants Which Have Various Holy
Names, published in Switzerland in 1591. A pre-Reformation Mary
Garden at Melrose Abbey, Scotland, is described in the first
chapter of Rosetta Clarkson's book, Green Enchantment.
The documented research of Mary's Gardens of Philadelphia has
found over 1,000 flower, plant, shrub and tree names symbolical of
Mary in listings by botanical and folklore researchers
systematically cataloging the plants and common plant names of the
Western world.
In this exhibit, contemporary Mary Garden species and hybrids
commonly available today have been substituted in some instances
for symbolically equivalent species more familiar in medieval
times.
Some religious plant associations came from the liturgical feast
days in the Church calendar for which plants were in bloom, such
as, in the exhibit garden, "Lent Flower", "Easter Bells",
"Pentecost Flower" and "Assumption Lily". Some, such as
"Lily-of-the-Valley", came from scriptural symbolism. Others came
from striking plant shapes which brought to mind events of the
Bible, or suggested details in the lives of Jesus, Mary or the
saints: "Heart Of Jesus", "Eyes of Mary", "Our Lady's Keys".
Others such as "The New Eve" and "Trinity Flower" were theological
in reference, and still others, such as "Our Lady's Bedstraw" and
"Tree of the Cross" came from old popular legends.
These names evidently were circulated in the popular oral
traditions of the medieval period by mendicant monks, pilgrims,
warriors, wandering scholars, roving singers, itinerant players,
merchants and other travellers, who regularly stayed at
monasteries as hostels.
In this pre-literate period, religious faith was transmitted
primarily through such popular traditions, rather than through
formal schools and textbooks as today. Popes, bishops, priests,
friars and scholars all nourished these traditions, but the
traditions themselves sustained the faith as they circulated among
the people, utilizing symbols taken from life, work, and nature.
By cultivating a contemporary Mary Garden, one is able to place
oneself in the position of medieval Christians as they recalled
and meditated on truths of religion through the nature symbols of
oral tradition. One can thus enter psychologically into the
directness of this relationship with God and the symbolically
recalled events of scripture through which they followed Mary as
their model for collaboration with Christ in building God's
kingdom on earth . . . as testified by the numerous medieval
cathedrals, universities, cities and kingdoms dedicated to Mary.
Design of exhibit Mary Garden by Martha Ludes Garra, Associate of
Mary's Gardens of Philadelphia.
Further information and Plant lists are on file at the Library of
the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, 100 N. 20th St., Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA SPRING FLOWER SHOW, 1968
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Martha Ludes Garra, John S. Stokes Jr. and Edward A. G. McTague
of Mary's Gardens inspect plants being prepared for exhibit
Mary Garden in greenhouse of Ernesta D. Ballard, Executive
Secretary of Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
Go to Representative Mary Gardens