While the kids wait for St. Nicholas, let's take a few minutes to discuss another saint, St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners.
I know, you all thought it was St. Francis, but it's not. Fiacre is the official patron saint of gardeners, the one we should be sending our prayers to when we need some special help with our gardens. Nowadays, it's not too hard to find a likeness of Fiacre in concrete, stone or just about any other medium, ready to go on display in the garden. Just look for the monk with the shovel.
But who was this guy?
According to information supplied by Mare Barr of Topiary, written by Leona Woodring Smith and posted on the Boerner Botanical Gardens home page, Fiacre was born in Ireland and raised in a monastery. His days at the monastery taught him the joys of planting and harvesting crops and an appreciation of nature.
When Fiacre decided he wanted to serve God in solitude, he established a hermitage for worship along the Nore River, using a cave for meditation, a well for drinking water and the river for bathing. Soon, people were flocking to him for prayers, food and healing, ruining his peace. So once again, he picked up and moved, this time to France, where the Bishop of Meaux granted him a wooded area near the Marne River. There he built a hut and cleared some space for a garden.
It's here that the saint worked his first miracle. When he asked the local bishop for additional ground for a garden, he was told he could have as much land as he could entrench in one day. According to legend, the saint merely dragged his spade across the ground, causing trees to topple and bushes to be uprooted and leaving him with a serious chunk of property. Of course, word of this miracle spread, and soon people were flocking to him for food, spiritual guidance and healing. The man just couldn't catch a break.
It was at this location that his monastery was established. Even after his death in 670 A.D. people still flocked there in hopes of physical and spiritual healing.
Aug. 30 is the feast day of St. Fiacre. Europeans celebrate this day with special masses, floral processions and pilgrimages. In France, floats of elaborate floral arrangements make their way down the flower petal-covered streets. In Ireland, hymns written in Fiacre's honor are sung.
The Patron Saints Index informs us he is also known as
Fiacrius, Fiaker and Fevre, and besides being special to gardeners, he is also the patron saint of cab drivers, florists, tile makers and box makers. And just in case you suffer from hemorrhoids, you might want to send up a prayer to Fiacre, too, since he's the one who covers that ailment.
Oh, and one more thing, the good saint didn't like women much. According to an article by Peter Loewer published in GreenPrints magazine, the saint had a falling-out with a local woman who accused him of witchcraft after his first miracle. Loewer says he was so angered by the accusation that he called her a witch and denied his oratory to all women, for all time. Over the years, this misogyny has been forgotten. But it was still known in 1641, when Ann of Austria refused to set foot in his shrine, hearing the legend that any woman who entered would go blind or mad.
So the next time you see a statue of a monk carrying a spade with a basket of vegetables beside him, you'll know who it is.
The new Pittsburgh Garden Place (formerly the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Center) class brochure is out for January and February 2001.
They are offering all types of courses, from certificate courses in horticulture, landscape and garden design and native plants in the garden, to non-certificate courses like "Gardening in the 21st Century," and "Starting Seeds For Flowers and Vegetables."
While many of the classes are held at the Garden Place, 1059 Shady Ave., other courses will be available at the Northland Public Library in McCandless, Mt. Lebanon Recreation Center and Hollow Oak Land Trust in Coraopolis.
Some special events to mark on your calendar sponsored by the Garden Place:
The 2001 Western Pennsylvania Gardening & Landscaping Symposium to be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Education Building at The Pittsburgh Zoo. This is co-sponsored by the Penn State Cooperative Extension and the Horticultural Society of Western Pennsylvania. Guest speakers include Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery, author Jeff Cox, nursery owner and plant expert Martha Oliver and Scott Kunst, owner of Heirloom Bulbs. The fee for this is $85 if postmarked by Jan. 31 and $95 after.
A bus tour to the Philadelphia Flower Show on March 5 and 6. Participants will be treated to a stop at Longwood Gardens and, on Tuesday, an early-morning tour of the flower show, with entry two hours before the show is open to the public. The fee for this is $295 for members, $315 for non-members, and includes bus fare, overnight accommodations, continental breakfast, admission fees, baggage handling, tax and gratuities. (Rates are based on double occupancy.)
For information or a copy of the new brochure, call the Garden Place at 412-441-4442.
