FernSK-
After briefly googling "Mary garden", it seems that there is an abundance of material available on creating such a garden. Your dilemna will most likely be the fact that your garden is in shade and most of the plants with Mary reference are sun plants. However, in the 2 articles I looked at, impatiens, ferns, lily of the valley, violets, and forget-me-nots were listed, all of which would do pretty well in your shady site. Rhododendron was listed-- a shade shrub.

What is it that confuses you in your web research?

Ginger

It is not new to use a garden to touch something outside ourselves. Give yourself time fern and it will fall into place, sensitivity is the key and it seems that you have that.

Fern--found a good site that lists LOTS of flowers--many of which will grow in the shade. Will include a link to that page below--you'll want to scroll down six or seven paragraphs for the list and meanings. Violets are listed, along with Solomon's Seal...but there are many more to choose from. It makes for interesting reading!

melanie

Here is a link that might be useful: Flowers of the Madonna

Hi all. Well my "Mary's Garden" is planted. Thanks for the link. Although I had seen it before it re-inforced some of my decisions. I guess the thing that had me confused was that depending on the website I visited several different plants had similar "names". In the end I decided to simply use those plants that were the most hardy to my Zone and those that were most readily available. In the end I planted my garden on Friday with 3 hostas [Blue Angel, Gold Standard and Regal Splendor] planted among Lady's Mantle, Anemonies, Ferns [because I always plant Ferns], primroses [in the sunniest spot], campanula, violas and a small area of ajuga [it looked like a beautiful blanket]. The hostas are a form of Lily and Blue angel fits my theme perfectly. I have room for 3 or 4 more hostas or awesome perenials in the future - a planted a few clumps of annuals as space holders. Thanks for your help

Fern