Inspirational Garden

Tucked away in our Nation's Capital, the flowers of the Franciscan Monastery surprise and delight.

If an angel had tapped me on the shoulder, I could hardly have been more astonished. There I was, standing on a sidewalk in northeast Washington, D.C., getting my first glimpse of an extraordinary garden that I had heard about but never seen. And I couldn't believe my eyes.

Thousands of flowers in magnificent sweeps hugged the walks and wrapped the lawn. Feathery princess palms, looking like props from the movie Casablanca, towered above an ornate Mediterranean-style portico. Oleanders, angel's trumpets, and hibiscus bloomed in exotic profusion. I felt as if I'd been transported to somewhere in southern Europe or the Middle East-which, as it turns out, was the point all along.

The gardens adorn Mount St. Sepulchre, a Franciscan monastery whose friars train to serve churches in the Holy Land. Many spend most of their lives overseas, returning here only briefly.

Shortly after the monastery was founded in 1899, the friars began transforming 100 acres of wilderness into a sanctuary with beautiful gardens. Led by Brother Meinrad Wiget, the men did all of the gardening themselves, in addition to their regular monastic duties. As they aged and their ranks thinned, they could no longer maintain the grounds. Fortunately, aid arrived in 1995 in the person of Joe Arseneault.

A New Beginning

With the support of the friars and parishioners, Joe and his company, Greensmiths, Inc., removed weeds and overgrown shrubs to make the gardens look better than ever. Today, Joe oversees the design, planting, and maintenance of the gardens. And the floral displays are amazing.

Visit around Easter, for example, and you'll be wowed by more than 12,000 tulips. On Mother's Day, more than 1,500 rosebushes bloom-the largest rose display in the D.C. metropolitan area. Summer and fall welcome glorious beds of vivid annuals and perennials, as well as the gaudy blooms and foliage of numerous tropical plants.

Joe favors bold masses of bright colors out front to draw in passersby. When we visited, a spectacular-looking border of yellow black-eyed Susans with pink and purple summer phlox planted out by the street did just that. Inside the front courtyard, was a masterful combination of blue angelonia and yelloworange lantana.

How does the monastery save its palms and other tropical plants over winter? Most are stored in a large glass greenhouse in back of the church. "We take up the palms in fall, wrap the root-balls, and lay them down in the greenhouse for the winter," Joe says. As for the many large angel's trumpets (Brugmansia sp.), some of which are nearly 50 years old, they're stored bare-root in a damp, dark, concrete closet and then planted outside the following spring.

More Than Blooms

Flowers aren't the monastery's sole attraction. Exact replicas of some of the most revered Christian shrines in the Holy Land reside within its walls, including the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem and the altars of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

"It was difficult for people of 100 years ago to go to the Holy Land," explains Brother Fabian, one of the current friars. "So the thought was that people could pilgrimage here and get an idea of what you would see there."

For Tom Mannion, a well-known garden designer from Arlington, Virginia, every visit to the monastery brings back special memories. "I went to high school in Rome," he recalls, "and when I walk into these gardens, I feel as if I were back at my boarding school. It looks so European. It gives you a sense of a journey to another place."

The Secret Is Out

But what astounds Tom even more than the flowers is that so few people know about the monastery. "It's right in the middle of Washington with easy access, free admission, and free parking across the street, yet even Washingtonians don't know about it," he states.

I have a feeling that's about to change, which would certainly have pleased Brother Wiget, the monastery's first head gardener. "In my little way, with the nurturing of flowers," he once wrote, "I hope to lead as many souls as I can to God."

STEVE BENDER

The Franciscan Monastery is located at 1400 Quincy Street NE., Washington, D.C. For more information call (202) 526-6800, or visit www.my franciscan.com.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Mid-Apr 2005
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