May is the month of Mary, and spring is the perfect time to start or add to your Mary garden to honor Our Blessed Mother. Gardening is also a great way to admire and appreciate God’s beautiful creation. I recently read this helpful gardening book, and our whole family is having a great time growing our goodies!
We have a small bed in the front of our home that we have made our Mary garden. Here are 4 easy-to-grow plants that we grew. You can sow the seeds for these directly into the ground, or grow them in pots if you are more limited on space. Try some out in your own Mary garden!
What is a Mary Garden?
A Mary Garden is a garden dedicated to Our Blessed Mother. Many churches have them, and you can design your very own in your home! Yours can be as simple or as intricate as you would like. You simply need a statue of Mary and space around her for flowers.
You could also add a bird feeder, bird bath, plants to attract pollinators, stone pavers, gravel, or even a bench or some chairs. Make the space welcoming for your family to gather around a pray and simply enjoy nature with Our Blessed Mother. In May, you can also hold a May Crowning and crown your statue.
Blue Borage
Blue Borage is a very interesting plant. This annual plant is edibile – including the beautiful blue flowers! Blue is a color often worn by Our Lady, so of course we had to include them in our garden for her.
Pollinators love these flowers as well. It is a very hardy plant and super easy to grow. We had little sprouts popping up within a week of sowing the seeds directly into the ground. They do reseed readily, so be on the look out for them spreading into areas where you do not want them. You will see flowers about 60 days after planting the seeds.
When to plant in the ground: after your area’s final frost
How to plant: plant them directly in the ground or in pots. They need 12″ spacing between each plant.
Ideal temperature: 60-80 degrees F
Minimum full sun: 6-12 hours
Frost hardy: no
Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s Favorite Poem to Our Lady:
Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue
Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue
Lovely Lady dressed in blue ——-
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
Tell me what to say!
Did you lift Him up, sometimes,
Gently on your knee?
Did you sing to Him the way
Mother does to me?
Queen Zinnias
Mary is the Queen of Heaven and Earth, so Queen Zinnias are perfect for a Mary garden. These gorgeous flowers come in tons of colors and color combinations. You could create a Mary garden full of them and that would honestly be amazing.
We sowed these directly into the ground and successfully grew some inside in pots to transfer to our garden. Both sprouted readily, and they are super easy to care for. Flowers take about 90 days to bloom from when you plant them.
When to plant in the ground: after your area’s final frost
How to plant: plant them directly in the ground or in pots. They need 9-12″ spacing between each plant.
Ideal temperature: 70-95 degrees F
Minimum full sun: 8-12 hours
Frost hardy: no
“A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Revelation 12:1
Marigolds
Mary’s name is right in this flower! According to this website, the name “Marigold” (or, “Mary’s Gold”) was given to this flower by St. Hildegard of Bingen.
These flowers are also good at keeping pests away (such as nematodes), and will re-seed easily so you get more flowers the next season. They may also keep furry friends away from your veggies because their strong smell masks the smell of the vegetable plants. French marigolds take about 60 days to bloom after planting.
When to plant in the ground: 1-2 weeks after your area’s final frost
How to plant: plant them directly in the ground or in pots. Need 6 inches between plants.
Ideal temperature: 70-95 degrees F
Minimum full sun: 6-8 hours
Frost hardy: no
“In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.” Luke 26-27
Rosemary
Rosemary is a delicious herb with pretty blue flowers. Rosemary likes hot, sunny weather and is a perennial that will come back year after year. If you live in a colder climate, you should bring it indoors in the winter, so this is best planted in a pot if you don’t want to kill it. It’s another perfect plant for your Mary garden that bears her name and has those Marian blue flowers as well.
This year, we started our rosemary indoors while there was still a high chance of frost. This was the most finicky of the 4 flowers, so buy an extra pack and plant more than you think you want.
When to plant in the ground: After your area’s final frost, or any time if your area does not get cold enough for frost
How to plant: Beginners may want to try growing them in pots, initially because they can be a bit harder to start
Ideal temperature: 60-75 degrees F
Minimum full sun: 6-8 hours
Frost hardy: can tolerate light frost
“For see, the winter is past,the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the turtledove is heard in our land.”
Song of Songs 2: 11-12
Do you have a Mary garden, or are you planning to start one? What flowers would you plant in your Mary garden? Let me know in the comments!