Mary Gardens - An Introduction

This Friday will be the first day in May, the month the Church dedicates to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This brings to mind the Mary Garden:

". . . the Mary garden is an old idea, a very old one indeed, which dates back to the Middle Ages when many flowers referred to the Virgin's life and virtues. Every monastery and convent had a special Mary garden to provide flowers to adorn the altar. It was because of the abundance of flowers in May that it became Mary's month, and the people delighted in decorating her statue and altar with flowers.

"The little people found their Mary gardens in the field and forests, where so many flowers spoke to them of some aspect of Our Lady and her Divine Son. It is said that then, in those happy days of Faith, the flowers honored Mary, the choicest Flower of All, the Mystical Rose; everyone knew that it was she of whom Solomon sang: I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys."

For anyone interested in starting a Mary Garden, a good place to begin is here.

Source of quoted material:
Galitzin, Margaret C.; A Renewed Interest in the Mary Gardens