Flowers make everything better
Dahlias gathered from my garden last summer.
My mom tells me that one of the first words I spoke was my own baby version of flower. “Fowa”. Right along with mama and dada was “fowa”.
It’s not surprising that this happened when we were visiting my grandmother Adele and admiring her flowerbed on the side of their farmhouse yard, in front of the row of lilac bushes. My grandmother’s flowers were always stunning. She, like many of the real Wednesday Club members, put a high value on her flower garden. They often had roll call topics that revolved around gardening, including “your best gardening tips”, “how to get rid of garden pests”, and “what is your favorite flower?” Each May they looked forward to a plant exchange, where they shared cuttings of hardy perennials like tiger lilies, black-eyed Susans, and yarrow.
It's noteworthy that these farm women made time for flowers considering the never-ending chores that were a part of their daily lives. Even those who didn’t have to help with milking dairy cattle or feeding the farm animals had a myriad of other responsibilities: cooking three full meals a day (not including mid-morning and mid-afternoon lunches for the field workers), raising children, laundry, sewing, and cleaning. And that’s just for starters!
Creating beauty.
Despite the extra work of a garden, flowers were important to the Wednesday Club members and perhaps essential for creating beauty in their lives. I feel the same way. No matter how much time it takes — watering, weeding, feeding, planting and replanting — nothing brings me more joy than seeing the blooming results of my efforts. And while my personal gardening skills veer more towards trial and error than soil analysis and technical expertise, I always appreciate the outcome, even if I’m just learning more about what doesn’t work.
Flowers are my creative muse, my reminder to pause and be grateful, and my memories of happy times. They touch deeply on my sensory delights of sight, smell, and touch. From the smallest violet to the largest dinner plate dahlia, the wonder and beauty of flowers swells my heart, every time, without fail. For me, flowers make everything better.
The language of flowers.
It's hard to imagine a person who doesn’t like flowers. Man or woman. The question is: which is your favorite and what does it say about you? Since ancient times, there has always been symbolism associated with flowers; the Victorians believed there was a language of flowers and that each type of flower sent a different message to its recipient. For example, lavender stood for distrust, a daisy stood for innocence, and a yellow tulip meant hopeless love. A peony represented shame and bashfulness. Bluebells meant constancy. And a sunflower equated to haughtiness!
I’m not certain what it means that my favorite is the sunflower, but for me the recollection of riding my horse past wide fields of sunflowers is surely one of my most cherished memories of growing up in South Dakota. Another memory is the delicate fragrance of the sweet peas that my Grandma Sonja always had on her kitchen table in the summertime. My pot of sweet peas is planted to honor her and my uncle Clifford, a flower wizard who not only grew gorgeous flowers but also created lovely, artistic floral arrangements.
In recent years, I have come to love dahlias. Though they have no fragrance, dahlias are so amazing with their endless varieties of colors, shapes, and sizes and they flower late in the summer when many other flowers are done blooming.
Flowers for all.
And while I’m not alone in my adoration of flowers, I know that not all of you have the space or time for gardening in your lives, or maybe you just don’t feel you have the right amount of green in your thumbs. Yet there are so many ways you can still bring the beauty and joy of flowers into your life.
If you don’t have a yard for growing perennials, plant some showy annuals in pots for your kitchen window or back patio. I’ve had a lot of fun creating a “flower quilt” on our back deck by combining a variety of planter sizes and flower varieties. The patchwork of colors and textures is ever-changing as the flowers grow and fade, and they provide a focal point for our dining room — a living piece of nature’s art.
Don’t wait for a special occasion or for someone else to bring you flowers. Go ahead, get them for yourself! A simple, inexpensive bunch of flowers from your grocery store or the local Saturday market can go a long way towards improving your attitude. Do you have a dreaded task ahead? Want to treat yourself for an accomplishment? Regretting a mistake you made? There’s nothing better than flowers to soothe your soul and lighten your load. And they’re calorie free and non-addicting (well, sort of).
If you don’t have flowers in your yard, and want an instant nature lift, bring in some greenery clippings from your yard. Learn to appreciate the variegated colors, feathery or leathery leaves, and the often-overlooked beauty of non-flowering plants. Think fern leaves, holly branches, ivy vines, billowy grasses, and sprigs of rosemary.
Flower power.
Enjoy the magnificence of a single flower. I love to display the majesty of a Southern magnolia like this one, and we are fortunate to have one of these extraordinary trees in our front yard. When I bring one indoors, it only lasts for a day or two, but it scents the whole house with its incredible fragrance. On a smaller scale, nothing says elegance more than a single stem of a Japanese iris.
If you can’t display the real thing, find a book on flowers and keep it on your coffee table or nightstand for a quick dose of delight and sense of well-being. There’s a brand-new book called “Flowers” by Charlotte Moss that I’m coveting. My neighbor recently rehomed to me “The Garden Room: How to Design & Decorate Your Outside Living Space” by Tessa Evelegh and I’m loving it. And one of my favorites is “The Language of Flowers” by Sheila Pickles, a collection of verse and paintings from the Victorian era. In it you can discover more about the hidden meaning behind your favorite flower.
A page from “The Language of Flowers” by Sheila Pickles
Finally, if you want to make a friend happy, give them a bouquet of flowers and watch how they light up. Flowers make the perfect gift in these times of “I don’t need one more thing”, and nothing beats the power of a flower to express “I care about you”, or “I’m celebrating you”, or “thank you”.
You deserve flowers.
No matter how you choose to bring flowers into your life, I encourage you to do so. I hope they touch your heart, evoke wonderful memories, and bring you closer to the sense of the divine. Yes, all this from a flower!
Share your memories of flowers and tell me your favorite. How do you add flowers to your life? Are they important to you? Add your thoughts in the comments below.