Resurrection Garden: Simple Holy Week Tradition

One of our favorite Holy Week traditions is to create a Resurrection Garden. It’s a beautiful, tactile way to reflect on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ during that final week of Lent. My kids look forward to doing this every year. I’m pretty sure I first learned about this idea from Catholic Icing years ago but I’ve also searched Pinterest and found some more great examples. But just in case, I thought I’d walk you through how we make ours.

What you’ll need

There are a few different ways to make a Resurrection Garden. Some people make them using living items, like small succulents and cat grass, as we do. Or you can choose to go the non-living route and pick fake plants. It just depends on personal preference. I’m going to share the items you’ll need to make one like the one we make every year.

Supplies you’ll need:

• Large terra cotta tray (or plastic if you prefer)
• Small terra cotta pot to act as your tomb
• small succlents (2-4 depending on the size of your tray)
• potting soil
• pack of cat grass seeds
• large enough rock to cover the terra cotta pot
• sticks and twine (or hot glue) to make crosses
• pond rocks or small stones (optional)
• moss can be used instead of cat grass if you don’t want to wait for seeds to grow

How to make a Resurrection Garden

Gather all the supplies you want to use from the list above or from your Pinterest research.

I always start by laying the small terra cotta pot on its side and arrange the succulents in the tray exactly where I want them to go. Usually, we put a few of each on either side of the pot. Once we have them placed, we fill the tray with potting soil.

Next, add the large stone in front of the “door” to the tomb and some pond rocks as a pathway to it. You can also gently plant cat grass seeds all around the soil on top of and behind the tomb if you’d like. Or, you can choose to place moss all over the garden at this point instead. It’s up to you. If you choose to use cat grass seeds, make sure you moisten the soil a little at this point as well. And, keep a small spray bottle close to your Resurrection Garden so the seeds can be watered every day.

Lastly, you can create three crosses using sticks and twine, or just make it easy and hot glue them together. Stick the crosses into the soil in the back so they stick out over the tomb.

And that’s it! It’s super simple. And, if you keep the cat grass watered throughout Holy Week, you should start to see sprouts pretty quickly. It’s a great way to reflect on the new life brought to us by Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.