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ATTLEBORO -- Michel Marcellot recalls taking photographs in the garden of a women named Margaret, whose home is located on an unassuming street in Pawtucket.

The garden was nothing fancy - certainly nothing of the kind that would have been done by a professional, he said.

But it was a lush garden in terms of the heart.

"It affected me emotionally," said Marcellot, a landscape designer who owns Seven Arrows in Attleboro with his wife Judy.

Margaret had forever wanted to plant a garden with her husband Jacinto in their small backyard, but the couple had limited means and other places to spend the family's money, including their four children. Then, a year after her husband of 27 years died, she received a first-time income tax return. While her children wanted her to use it to take a vacation, she couldn't imagine where or why she would go without her husband and instead planted a garden in his memory. It includes bleeding hearts, among other plants, a Virgin Mary statue, a plaster of Paris set of Margaret's and her husband's hands taken before his death. She goes there for peace, to be near her husband's spirit which she feels pass by when the plants sway in the breeze.

"There was so much love. In every corner you could feel the devotion," Marcellot said of being in Margaret's small backyard garden.

"It's much more fulfilling than walking an (Frederick Law) Olmsted landscape."

Looking for sanctuary

It was gardens of peace, pleasure and spirit - of sanctuary - that the Marcellots were looking for to illustrate their first book "Sacred Gardens."

Seven Arrows, a nursery that touts uncommon plants and whose evolving landscape including gardens and a tea room in its small store where dried herbs, lotions and a litany of other items are sold, was started by the couple 28 years ago on the 18th-century homestead of Uriel Bowen on the Attleboro/Seekonk line with a vision and an $800 tax rebate.

There are also dogs and cats, (the couple works with a number of animal rescue leagues and shelters) that roam the property or that tail the couple, and chickens and pot-bellied pigs in a penned-in yard.

They also helped to raise two girls whose family was originally from a tribe in Laos.

The book, in part, tells of their own spiritual journey in building the business.

As Judy Marcellot tells it, sitting at a table with a cup of tea at a small garden table in the light and warmth of one of the greenhouses on a recent winter's day, a book was always something they wanted to do, but with running a business and life in general, "when do you get to do that?" It made it somewhat easier when Schiffer Publishing contacted them to do three books along the same theme, even though they missed their year's deadline on the first and not much money is involved.

The book contains some of the couple's experiences in developing Seven Arrows, along with the people who have influenced their course. It is largely, however, a pictorial spanning cultural to geometrical forms, both created and in nature, with a healthy dose of blooms, statuary - even frogs - from which people derive peace or pleasure or a sense of their place in the universe.

"We looked at what other cultures around the world venerated," like The Sphinx in Egypt (with photos and information provided by former city councilor Robert Schoch, a professor at Boston University whose interests include geology and Egypt), "and sacred," Judy said. They also devote some time to the mathematic and scientific influences on people through forms and structures like Machu Picchu.

"But more important to us was to connect to ordinary gardeners," she said. "We looked at some well-known gardens, like Prince Charles's 'Carpet Garden,' designed after a favorite Persian rug, but that cost $3 million."

"We wanted to write a book where people could look at it and say 'I can do that."

While gardens of the rich and famous may be architecturally sound in their landscaping, "there's something that's just missing," Michel said.

There are profiles of a number of people speaking about nature and their gardens and what they inspire.

"We talked to people about what their connections were to their gardens," Judy explained. "It's what makes them feel good, or have an 'aha!' moment, or makes them laugh or take pride."

"They are places in the world where you just feel good," she said, noting stone, water and aroma are three common elements in 'spiritual' gardens. And spiritual is not religion specific; Judy and Michel, together, quote a Van Morrison lyric..."no guru, no method, no teacher - just you and me and nature in the garden."

The gardens pictured in the book are largely from Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

They are spaces people have created for peace, tranquility - of finding "a presence larger than themselves," Judy said. Margaret's garden in Pawtucket is among them.

If you'd like to discover other special gardens, pick up Michel and Judy Marcellot's book "Sacred Spaces." The book is available for purchase at Seven Arrows Farm, by mail order and on the Internet. Visit sevenarrowsfarm.com and click on the link for "Sacred Gardens Our Book" in the left hand navigation bar to order from the Web site, or visit Amazon.com to order your copy.