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Bible Gardens

© Kirk Johnson

A Bible garden is a garden which is composed using plants which are mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. Unlike Mary Gardens, there doesn?t seem to be any traditional way to design a Bible garden, the emphasis is totally on the individual plants.

Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina has one of the most beautiful Bible gardens in the world, but I suppose that it could be criticized for being primarily a display of plants, rather than a garden for meditation. For this article, I have designed a Bible garden for contemplation and meditation, a garden for individuals and groups to study the Bible in.

Most of the plants which are mentioned in the Bible are from lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, it is easy to create a Bible garden in Southern California or South Australia, it is more difficult in most parts of the world. This design is just intended to help you get your creative juices flowing, to stimulate your brains. The website of the Warsaw Biblical Garden in Warsaw, Indiana, features an excellent plant list which shows possible substitutes for Mediterranean plants which aren?t hardy in Indiana. I am going to pretend that all plants will grow well in all parts of the world, that is the advantage of creating a garden in your head, you can ignore reality.

While the goal of many Bible gardens is to contain every plant which is mentioned in the Bible, I am going to focus on those plants which are most likely to inspire meditations. Because most of the plants which are mentioned in the Bible are mentioned in the Old Testament, and because this article is being written for Suite 101?s celebrations, this article will be about a Jewish garden.

An ideal Bible garden should contain the seven plants which are mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8. The seven species which symbolize the fertility of the land of Israel are wheat, barley, figs, pomegranates, dates, olives and grapes. I also think that an ideal Bible garden wouldn?t be complete without a cedar of Lebanon. These are the most important plants in my design, but I am allowing plenty of space for a collection of plants.

The bottom of this plan faces south, the top of the plan is north. This plan isn't drawn to scale, it is just a visual attempt to communicate ideas. At the bottom of the plan, you will see a central path with plots for growing vegetables on either side. Many commonly grown herbs and vegetables are mentioned in the Bible. To the east and west of the vegetable plots, there are plots for sowing wheat and barley. It would be appropriate to have corn poppies growing among the grains, they were almost certainly the flowers of the field mentioned in Isaiah 40:6.