Mary Garden Galore!

Family Gardening

This year, our Mary Garden is really taking off! I planted many of the flowers suggested in the second year Little Women's Program project for May. These included coneflowers, Shasta daisies, cloth of gold, clematis and lavender. 

There was already daffodils in the area we were using, so we just transplanted them to where we thought they would look good. There was just one problem: the deer. They loved coming up at night and eating my flowers!

After months of trying many things to keep them back (including motion-activated sprinklers) we opted for drought (we have very dry weather) and deer resistant plants.

The Shasta daisies were growing so tall that Mr.B even had to put our 3-foot Mary statue on a pedestal so she didn't look swallowed up! The mullein is near six-foot tall.

They grow wild here, so we just hunted them up in our yard and transplanted them to the garden! As my grandma in Idaho had some autumn glory, we took some with us while we were up there.

A very good idea while hunting for flowers for your Mary garden is to go to a local nursery and see what kinds of flowers they sell. These probably grow well in your area. We were fortunate enough to meet a Catholic lady who was working at a nursery who was more than happy to help us find alternatives for the flowers in our guide.

If you can find someone who is willing to help you, that would be ideal. If not, look up on the internet to see what grows in your area and when to plant them.

Now we added blazing stars, blanket flower, mullein, alcazar, autumn glory and sea grass to the Mary garden. As we really enjoy watching all the butterflies, hummingbirds, and honey bees which grace our garden with their presence, we also added Silvia to attract them. The flowers are all flourishing and very happy. I do water about every other day, but it is so worth it.