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                                               Intro Mary Garden

Parish Mary Garden Care


Essential elements of Parish Mary Garden care and celebration include:

 - Assuming, with Parish Council's and/or pastor's permission and
   support, responsibility by one or more parishioners for the
   initial planning, digging, planting and care of Parish Mary Garden.

 - Inspiring and organizing a larger Mary Garden Guild of volunteers
   committed to joining in the care of the Mary Garden as a devotional
   work.

 - Preparing and maintaining a plant list and planting plan, usually 
   posted nearby the garden as information for visitors.

 - Installing and maintaining plant markers displaying the common
   and religious names of the Flowers of Our Lady.

 - Providing and planting replacement plants - annuals, biennials
   and perennials - at the proper times each year (and maintaining
   information as to current private or commercial sources where
   they may be procured).
   
 - Maintaining a schedule of volunteers to care for regular garden
   watering, weeding, trimming, edging, and pinching off of spent
   blooms and foliage.  (Several parishes have installed underground
   piping and bed nozzles for automatic, timer-controlled watering.)

 - Composing and printing a garden descriptive leaflet or
   brochure, and maintaining a supply for parishioners and
   visitors in parish pamphlet racks.

 - Establishing a shelf of Mary Garden books and literature in
   parish or school library.

 - Introducing windowsill and dish Mary Gardens and seed starting
   in parish school classrooms.  Setting aside a niche or section
   of the Mary Garden for care by pupils.  Incorporating seed
   starting and plant care in science studies, and plant symbolism
   in religious instruction.

 - Establishing means of funding the purchase of replacement plants
   if not provided from parishioner home Mary Garden seed starting
   and nursery beds.

 - From the long view, establishing "fall-back" plans and funds
   for minimal Mary Garden maintenance by professionl grounds
   keepers in possible periods of the absence of adequate Guild
   volunteers.

 - Arranging for the sacramental blessing, with accompanying
   ceremony, by the parish clergy each year of the focal statue of
   the Virgin and the Flowers of Our Lady.

 - Organizing liturgical celebrations and Rosary prayers in the
   Mary Garden, with the spiritual enrichment of related Flowers of
   Our Lady.

 - Organizing periodic lectures or garden tours for the instruction
   and motivation of new parishioners and potential Guild members.


(See "Establishing and Maintaining a Parish Mary Garden"