Rose of Lima
Saint Rose of Lima is the patroness of gardeners and florists for the simplest and sweetest of reasons: her name was Rose, she tended a little garden of flowers and herbs by her family’s house to support the poor, and tradition tells that as an infant her face appeared to bloom into a rose. The first canonized saint of the Americas, she lived as a Dominican tertiary of fierce penance and mystical prayer. For that she is the great patroness of Latin America and of Peru, the land of her birth, and of the Philippines, which she was named to protect along with the Indies and all the lands of the Spanish crown.
Saint Rose of Lima was the first saint born in the Americas to be canonized. Born Isabel Flores de Oliva in Lima, Peru, in 1586, she took the name Rose and lived a life of extreme penance and mystical prayer as a Dominican tertiary. She cared for the sick and poor in her home and is the patroness of Latin America.
