Two pollinator gardens are on the grounds of St. John Neumann Parish. The Care for our Common Home Ministry maintains the gardens. Our inspiration for building the gardens, like the inspiration for our entire ministry, was Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ – On Care for Our Common Home. Among the many comprehensive environmental topics he addressed was the concept of biodiversity loss. More than slightly overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems, we wanted to act. But how? Given that we are ministered here by the Oblates of St Francis de Sales, we chose to follow St Francis’ saying “Great occasions for serving God come Seldom, but little ones surround us daily”.

In 2017, we talked with our facilities manager at SJN about the problem of what we could do about it. He told us of a Boy Scout who wanted to do a project for the church to achieve his Eagle Scout award. We suggested a pollinator garden. The Scout agreed, organize a team of scouts to build the garden, and laid out the process.

Given the success of the original garden, in 2023 we were approached by another Scout looking for a Eagle project. We suggested a “native plant Mary Garden. The Scouts expanded the original Garden and installed the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Our Lady of Guadalupe has special significance for our Hispanic community. A member of the Spanish community interested in gardening approached us and said we needed to add roses to the garden, which he undertook himself. It was fun working with him as he didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. A little later another member of the Spanish community approached us and wanted to construct a stone base to raise the profile.

We were approached by a group of northern Virginia organizations who offered us a free 10 foot tall Swamp Oak. The groups were interested in restore large numbers of native trees on public and common land where funding for landscaping is lacking and nothing would otherwise be planted. We hope it serves as a demonstration project to educate the public about the values and benefits of the urban forest. We took them up on their offer, which added another native plant area to the campus.

Finally, our SJN Preschool Director built a small Mary Garden in back of the church next to the preschool playground. This serves both as a place to honor a retired preschool teacher and as a place to teach the youngsters to appreciate Mary and nature.