Santa Clara University

A Peaceful Tribute to St. Clare

Looking for a quiet place to relax? Tucked between the de Saisset Museum and the Arts and Sciences Building on campus, the crisscrossed paths and carefully chosen plants of the St. Clare Garden create a peaceful tribute to the patron saint of both the university and the city of Santa Clara.

Modeled after medieval gardens circa 1250 (the end of St. Clare’s life), the garden is arranged into five main sections designed to depict stages of the saint’s life. To commemorate her childhood, wildflowers native to central Italy grow. Medicinal and household herbs honor her girlhood. The lavender garden, a symbol of purification, represents her conversion. The kitchen garden, with typical medieval vegetables, symbolizes her monastic life, while flowering plants traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary and Jesus memorialize her spiritual life.

A bronze sculpture of St. Clare, sculpted by Truong Pham, S.J., graces the middle of the garden, her angelic face uplifted as if to inhale the aroma of the lavender.

The garden also highlights suitable plants for modern-day Santa Clara gardens, notes Nancy Lucid, one of the garden’s designers. A medieval historian, Lucid used to teach at SCU and is a former landscape designer as well.

“It is a relatively sustainable garden appropriate for this environment. So I was hoping to show people drought-tolerant plants and different techniques they could use,” Lucid says.

She has developed an extensive website with information about St. Clare, the garden, and sustainable planting in general. Visitors can print out information about the layout and plants in the garden if they want to replicate displays at home.

Each season, the garden changes, Lucid says. In April and May, look for the blooms of the lilies, irises, and lavender.

She hopes visitors to the garden come away with “a sense of peace and a flavor of the Middle Ages.”

For more information, visit www.scu.edu/stclaregarden.