I think it's silly to suppose that anytime an old-timer noticed anything in nature that he was being a pagan. In prior centuries, understanding plants and animals was essential to survival, and so they were on people's minds a lot.

Besides, Mary was female and of course she likes flowers.

I help take care of a garden with a shrine to Mary. At the side of her shrine are two planters in which the plants alternately drown and suffer drought. One day, someone put a big ceramic snail in one of the planters. So far that fragile snail has survived two years of storms, hoboes and falling branches.

Of course it has. It's HER snail.