A Planting List for the North — Zone 3

The following flowers are among those most lovingly associated with Our Lady. Their ancient names and the pious traditions connected with them form part of the rich heritage of Catholic devotion. The cultivation notes have been adapted for those planting in a northern climate, Zone 3, where the summers are brief and the winters are long.

Each flower carries both a memory and a meaning: a little sign of the virtues and mysteries long contemplated in the life of the Blessed Virgin. For the tradition behind them, see The Mary Garden: An Enclosed Garden for Our Lady.

A Word for the Cold-Garden Planter

In the North, the garden keeps a short and precious season. Wait until the last frosts have passed, often not before the close of May, before setting tender plants into the earth, for the first touch of autumn’s frost may return by the middle of September. Raise the more delicate flowers indoors upon a sunlit windowsill, sow the hardy annuals into the warming soil, and give the perennials and self-seeding blossoms time to root and flourish.

A Mary Garden is not fashioned in a single spring but grows gently, year by year, as beauty, memory, and devotion take root together.

The Two Chief Flowers

Lily (Lilium candidum, the Madonna lily) — the Madonna Lily; the Annunciation Lily.
The emblem of her virginity and innocence, the lily is the flower borne by St. Gabriel in old paintings of the Annunciation; the Venerable Bede saw in its white petals her stainless body and in its golden heart the glory of her soul.

Growing: The true Madonna lily is only marginally hardy in a cold garden and resents wet, frozen ground; give it the sunniest, sharpest-drained, most sheltered spot you have, plant the bulb shallowly in late summer, and mulch once the ground has frozen. Where it will not thrive, a hardy white Asiatic lily makes a faithful and reliable stand-in.

Rose (hardy shrub roses) — the Mystical Rose (Rosa Mystica), Queen of Flowers for the Queen of Heaven.
The red rose for her burning charity and her share in the Passion, the white for her purity; and the rose-crown that gives the Rosary its name.

Growing: Tender hybrid teas will not last a prairie winter — plant instead the prairie-hardy shrub roses, many of them Canadian-bred: the Explorer series (‘John Cabot’, ‘William Baffin’), the Parkland series, the rugosas, and old favourites such as ‘Thérèse Bugnet’. Choose own-root plants, give them full sun, and let the winter snow be their blanket.

Hardy Perennials

They return each spring.

Columbine (Aquilegia) — Our Lady’s Shoes.
The columbine, whose petals hang like little shoes and whose dove-like blossoms recalled the Holy Ghost, was cherished as Our Lady’s Shoes and a reminder of His seven gifts.

Growing: Among the easiest and hardiest of perennials, in sun or part shade; it self-sows gently and returns for years, the native kinds being especially tough.

Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) — Our Lady’s Mantle.
The softly pleated leaf was likened to the folds of her cloak, beneath which she shelters her children; each morning it holds a rim of dew like beads.

Growing: Hardy and undemanding in sun or part shade, with sprays of chartreuse flowers; content in ordinary soil and long-lived.

Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) — Our Lady’s Tears.
The little white bells were said to have sprung from the tears she shed beneath the Cross.

Growing: Very hardy and sweetly scented, it carpets shady ground and spreads freely — give it a place where it may roam. Every part is poisonous, so keep it from small children.

Forget-me-not (Myosotis) — the Eyes of Mary.
The small blue flowers were her watching eyes, remembering her children.

Growing: Easy in cool, moist, part-shaded ground; it seeds itself year to year and needs little help — a froth of true blue in spring.

Wild Iris / Sword Lily (Iris versicolor, or the hardy Iris sibirica) — Mary’s Sword of Sorrow.
The blade-like leaves recall the word of holy Simeon, “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.”

Growing: The native blue flag and the Siberian iris are both fully hardy and long-lived; give them sun and a moist to ordinary soil, and their upright foliage stands like a sword all season.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata) — the Violet of Humility, as St. Bernard named her.
The low, hidden flower is her humility — the handmaid who called herself the least.

Growing: Sweet violet is a little tender in the hardest gardens; in very cold ground the hardy native violets and the cheerful Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor) are surer, and self-sow willingly in part shade.

Wild Strawberry (Fragaria) — the Fruitful Virgin.
Bearing flower and fruit at once, it was the emblem of her who was both virgin and mother.

Growing: Thoroughly hardy and content in sun or light shade, it makes a low green carpet and offers small sweet berries; alpine strawberries fruit all season and stay tidy.

Periwinkle (Vinca minor) — the Virgin Flower.
Its unfading blue and its evergreen leaf were tokens of her constancy.

Growing: A tough evergreen groundcover for sun or shade, spreading to clothe difficult corners, with blue flowers in spring; hardy in most cold gardens where winter snow lies to cover it.

Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) — Our Lady’s Humility.
A lowly, fragrant herb strewn for her honour.

Growing: A hardy, sun-loving mat that softens paths and edgings and gives up its scent underfoot; once settled it asks for little and endures drought well.

Bulbs for the Earliest Spring

Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) — Candlemas Bells; Mary’s Tapers.
The first flower to rise from the cold ground, carried to her altar at the Purification on the second of February — a token of purity in the dead of winter.

Growing: Plant the little bulbs in autumn, in part shade beneath trees or shrubs. In a northern garden they will not open at Candlemas itself but with the first thaw — still the very first flowers to greet the spring.

Biennials

Sown one year, blooming the next.

Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) — Our Lady’s Cushion.
The dense, softly rounded flower-heads were seen as her cushion.

Growing: A hardy, short-lived biennial or perennial for full sun, easy from seed and richly scented, and it too will sow itself.

Annuals

Sown fresh each year.

Pot Marigold (Calendula officinalis) — Mary’s Gold.
Its golden flowers were strewn upon her altars — the gold of the poor laid before the Queen.

Growing: A hardy annual and one of the simplest of all; sow the seed straight into the ground in spring and it will flower from summer until hard frost, often seeding itself for the year to come. Cool weather only makes it happier.

Tender — Grown in a Pot

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) — the Rose of Mary.
Legend says its flowers took their blue from Our Lady’s cloak, laid over the shrub as she rested on the Flight into Egypt; and that it never grows taller than the Saviour was, nor outlives the thirty-three years of Our Lord’s earthly life.

Growing: Rosemary cannot survive a northern winter in the open ground. Grow it in a pot on a sunny step through the summer and bring it indoors to a cool, bright window before the first frost, and it will keep for many years.

Offering

When the Feast of the Assumption arrives, gather a modest bouquet from the flowers in bloom and lay it before Our Lady at a Marian shrine. Offered in thanksgiving and filial devotion, these blossoms become a simple tribute to the Blessed Virgin, returning to her the beauty cultivated in her honour and entrusting the garden — and all who tend it — to her maternal care.