Saint Mark's Church

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These Saturdays in the Garden happen every 3rd Saturday of the month. Though I would ordinarily join you on the 20th, I will be out of the country. Libby Espey, who led the garden committee at Saint Mark's for 9 years, will be your fearless leader. If we can get a sizeable group of people we can make quick work of watering, deadheading, and a little bit of weeding before it gets too hot.

10 - 11:30 @ 1625 Locust Street

Geoff Kees Thompson

Join us this Saturday for our next Saturday In The Garden. We'll be getting ahead of some weeds, identifying some transplant opportunities for next season, taking inventory and perhaps even planting a few new additions.

10:30 - 12:30 @ 1625 Locust Street

On an abnormally warm June day blue smoked billowed skyward as I exited the church. Around the corner a red and wet-with-sweat Terry Moore manned the grills searing the piles of burgers and dogs folks now inside were soon to enjoy. Just the day before a group of devoted Saint Mark’s gardeners had joined me in this same space to brave the heat and add some new perennials. As we finished our work around midday a sweltering wedding party began mulling into the gardens as Scottish bagpipes blared from underneath our Southern Magnolia. Earlier in the week I stopped in for some light garden tending and as twilight bathed the garden in faint light a group of young people gathered near the parish house steps enjoying the summer air.

This is but a few days in the life of our gardens at Saint Mark’s. As many stop to admire our beautiful roses, most taking photos, some taking a bit more, J I look forward to the months ahead when some of the nascent perennials we planted will be established, un-wilted and ready to vie for the attention of those seeking a respite from the hard edge of the city.

I think of our garden as a social space… as a natural open set of arms that extend into urbanity. I think our garden makes us more approachable and gives us a unique way to engage passers by. I think of our garden as a salve to an often hard-edged routine of appointments and obligations. I think of our garden as a free-form expression to the ministry we provide in ritual and sacrament and tradition within our church walls. The universality of the garden ministers to all in subtle and healing ways.

These past few weeks I’ve spoken not only with fellow Saint Markians but strangers, acquaintances and friends over the gates. Quite a few people have told me how much they appreciate the gardens. Some have gone on to say they have been changing their walking patterns to enjoy the gardens more often. This is all very encouraging to me and I hope it is to you. A well-planned garden brings interest all year round and at best magnifies the architecture that surrounds it. Why shouldn’t the blooms of our gardens also magnify the many miracles God works inside our church walls and billow them out like the blue smoke of a barbeque. With grace and perhaps some providence our garden can provide a sensory invitation to not only change a walking pattern to pass our church but change a walking pattern to enter it.

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Miniature Hollyhock in bloom in the South Garden | Photo by Libby Espey

Join us this Saturday for our next round of spring and summer preparations in the garden. We'll be planting, pruning and prepping for a summer full of beauty.

10:30 - 2:30 @ 1625 Locust Street

Lunch will be provided.

East Garden: our first rose of the year.

Yesterday Father Phelps ended his poignant sermon by stating: “Our story starts in a garden (Genesis) and ends in a city (Revelation). Here we are a church surrounded by a garden in the middle of the city.” How well we tend our garden is an outward reflection of how well we are tending to each other. At the end of the service yesterday we blessed these gardens hoping for a bountiful growing season with amenable temperatures and enough rain to keep our plants lush and sated. Liturgically speaking our garden connects us to the earth from which we came. There are only a few times we are directly reminded of this. Ash Wednesday is one; the sixth Sunday of Easter is the other.

Since I last wrote to you we’ve made some great progress getting our gardens prepped for the warmth and sun ahead. We pruned, weeded, transplanted, planted and topped things off with a nice layer of mulch and fertilizer. This year you’ll find some new additions including two new rose bushes, a climbing yellow rose in the central garden along the gate, some bright annuals (tropical begonia, coleus, geranium, lantana, canna), perennials (solomon’s seal, foamflower, sedums) and even a lotus! That submerged container by the Japanese maple is the lotus, not a birdbath. ☺

Just this past Sunday our stately southern magnolia got a haircut allowing some more light into our flower beds below and clearer sightlines onto our beautiful parish hall with it’s gabled slate roofs. The saucer magnolias in the central garden have also been thinned out a bit including removal of some understory branches and dreaded sucker growth, a tree’s version of a cowlick, the super straight looking branches that emerge from a prior cutting. That said there is still much to tackle in both the west and central gardens. Invasive weeds are on the retreat but a couple more Saturdays will seal their fate. More mulch is also needed particularly for the central garden. More annuals will also be placed in the west garden to ensure we have a vibrant, lush showing all season.

On the virtual side, I’m organizing a Google document of volunteers within and outside our parish interested in contributing their time, energy and resources to our garden. Soon we will also have a twitter account and corresponding facebook page to help bridge the digital divide and inform people of what we’re doing, what our needs are and how they can get involved.

Our next organized opportunity for you to get involved is Saturday the 18th of May. We will be weeding, planting, mulching and watering. I need your help to make our gardens really shine this year. Even an hour of your time is appreciated. If Saturdays don’t work for you, I regularly check in during the week and will make time for anyone who wants to lend a hand. 

When: Saturday, May 18th 10:30 to 2:30
Where: West & Central Gardens of Saint Mark’s
Contact: Geoff Kees Thompson 
       garden@saintmarksphiladephia.com

Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. 
Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. 
These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name; 
They will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.
Isaiah 55:13

 Peace, Love & Roses

Geoff Kees Thompson