Mary Garden - Honoring the Blessed Mother with Flowers

 

Since I was born my parents have placed statues of Mary all around the property and house. Around the time I was born my parents bought life-size statues of Our Lady of Fatima and the three shepherd children and placed the set in front of our house facing a large lake. We also have a statue of Mary at the entrance of our long driveway, a statue of Mary in our apple orchard, and I have my own Mary garden located in a little clearing in the woods. I have always been drawn to honoring Mary in this way -- through flowers and plants and gardens. Mary gardens are certainly not a new thing; I've read that they began during the Middle Ages using flowers named by Christian botanists after Mary's life and virtues. This way of honoring Mary using specially named flowers intrigued me.

Pinteresting Tuesday: My Flowers for 2013

Blessed Virgin Garden Outdoor Statue Restoration

I've been wanting to show you the restoration process of my family's Mary statue and thought today was a good as time as any. Perhaps you'll be inspired to restore one of your own garden statues. If you have any questions about the process just drop me a line. I'd love to see the before and after photos and post them on the blog for others to see.

This is the before shot of our statue. My parents bought it in 1989 after a large hail storm hit the orchard a year earlier. They placed the statue in the middle of the fruit orchard and built a garden around it. The statue has seen a lot of weather since then and it was time for a makeover. My sister Catherine and I took on the restoration project and we began by chipping away at the old paint with a steel brush.

Photo Friday: Using Rocks in the Garden

I wanted to show you how I incorporate rocks of all sizes into my garden and what better way than with lots of photos!

My small flower garden is situated in a lush woods under the canopy of two great white oaks. It’s rather a difficult spot to garden due to the shade and lack of water (the trees soak up a lot!), but also because it is right on a rather steep hill. It’s such a beautiful spot overlooking a large lake that I didn’t mind dealing with the difficulties.

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One of the first things I did was build dry stack rock walls to brace the soil back and create level garden plots. I made a couple large retaining walls and a couple small ones. I was lucky to have