A Garden of Love

While it’s always a treat to receive a bouquet of flowers for Valentine’s Day celebrations, a plant would be even better.

The longer lifespan means you won’t be forgotten any time soon.

Especially with peonies – you’ll be thought of for decades!

Here’s some ideas on what plants to bring into your or someone you love’s garden or home to send the message of love:

Amaranth

Symbolism:

  • Unending love/immortality
  • Said to cure a broken heart

Facts:

  • Annual or perennial depending on the variety
  • A long history of medicinal use

 

Aster

Symbolism:

  • Grow it to wish for love
  • Carry it to win love
  • Love, patience, elegance, good luck and gained wisdom

Facts:

  • Majority are perrenials, while some are annuals and biennials
  • They bloom from late summer to first frost so are popular in autumn and winter flower arrangements
  • Also referred to as ‘Starworts’ or ‘Michaelmas’

 

Chrysanthemum

Symbolism:

  • Red ones say ‘I love you’
  • Rose-coloured ones say ‘in love’

Facts:

  • They are perennials but if you buy them from a nursery, treat them as annuals
  • For centuries the oil extracted from the flowers of certain species has been used in insecticides
  • The plant’s petals are actually florets with both sexual parts

 

Crocus

Symbolism:

  • Their fragrance is thought to inspire love
  • Apparently you can attract love into your life by growing crocus

Facts:

  • An early-blooming spring bulb-like structure called a corm
  • Their leaves and petals are insulated by a waxy layer helping them weather occasional frost and even a bit of snow
  • Saffron is the product of Crocus

 

Carnation

Symbolism:

  • Pink carnations symbolize a mother’s love
  • Red symbolizes a deeply romantic love or pure love

Facts:

  • Also known as ‘pink clover’
  • There are 3 main types of carnations: large flowered, spray, and dwarf
  • They are edible and delicious as part of a dessert or on their own

 

Dahlia

Symbolism:

  • Love, inner strength, beauty, kindness
  • A way to say ‘I’m forever yours’

Facts:

  • All dahlia are edible
  • In Mexico, Dahlia tubers are roasted and made into a drink (in place of coffee)
  • The ‘Little Dorit’ variety was named after the Charles Dickens novel

 

English Lavender

Symbolism:

  • purity and devotion
  • a lavender scented note or clothes scented with lavender are thought to attract love

Facts:

  • an evergreen perennial shrub
  • lavender comes in other colours other than lavender – white, yellow and pink

 

Peonies

Symbolism:

  • Red peonies symbolise love, romance and passion
  • Pink peonies communicate lasting love, good fortune and prosperity

Facts:

  • They come in every colour except blue
  • Bees prefer the ‘single’ form
  • Their petals are on the dessert menu in China
  • They can live on for more than a century!

 

Yarrow

Symbolism:

  • Having yarrow in your home will bring you love for 7 years!
  • They’ve been said to find your one true love

Facts:

  • A hardy perennial
  • Make good companion plants
  • Birds love them - apparently used by Starlings in their nests as they stop the growth of parasites
  • Attract bees and other beneficial insects

 

If you already have a few of these in your garden or home then you’re well on your way to love.

Peonies that Symbolise Love

With Valentine’s Day coming up are you wondering what peonies to send to a loved one? Which peonies symbolise love?

Peonies symbolise many different things, depending on the colour. In China, red is a symbol of royalty. Only emperors and their families used it, so red peonies came to embody wealth, prosperity, honour and respect. Peony is a traditional flower symbol in China and is called 牡丹 (mǔdān) which means “the most beautiful”.

In Western culture red flowers are generally associated with love and red peonies have come to symbolise love, romance and passion.

Pink peonies are commonly used in wedding bouquets as they symbolise lasting love, good fortune and prosperity. They can also depict love at first sight.

FLOWERS SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS

These days most of us don’t think very deeply about the specific meaning of flowers when deciding what flower to pick. We usually just go with a colour or form we like, don’t we?

But there was a time when flowers spoke volumes.

Communicating with flowers dates back to the 1700s in Turkey but the Victorian era was a time when this form of communication really took off. This happened after Lady Mary Wortley Montagu visited Turkey and discovered the way harem girls communicated with each other – sending coded messages via flowers.

She wrote:

“There is no colour, no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather, that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even of news, without ever inking your fingers.”

 

It was the ideal vehicle for expressing thoughts and feelings that were considered taboo at the time. And in the Victorian age full of rules and restrictions, that was just about anything to do with expressing emotions.

Assigning meaning to specific flower types to communicate feelings or desires is known as floriography and it became not only a craze but one of the main ways anyone was able to get their untoward thoughts across without uttering or writing a single word.

So if you received a bunch of flowers like this:

White Peonies (bashfulness) + Red Peonies (true love) + Magenta Ranunculus (dazzled by your charm)  + Pale pink Sweet Peas (meet me)

You can be sure potential love is on the horizon!

GIVE THE GIFT OF A PEONY

So why not send a peony? You never know what could happen…

Some options of appropriately named and coloured peonies you could go for are:

'Love Affair'

Unusual, rare and highly sought after. A mid season flowering 'Itoh' semi-double, white, bowl-shaped bloom with a beautiful fragrance

'My Love'

Herbaceous perennial with striking double blooms in blush with small red flares fading to white

'Bowl of Love'

A short version of 'Bowl of Beauty' with carmine pink outer petals and pale cream petaloids. An exquisite fragrant, mid season bloomer

'Pillow Talk'

A gorgeous, sweetly scented, large double peony with soft, creamy cameo pink rose-type flowers. Makes an excellent cut flower.

'Berry Berry Fine'

Unusual and highly collectable, mid season ‘Itoh’ with finely cut foliage on sturdy framework and incredible fragrant, single to semi-double, deep lavender pink flowers highlighted with darker pink streaks and plum basal flares

'Pink Parfait'

A late flowering, herbaceous perennial with double, deep pink highly fragrant blooms that make excellent cut flowers

'Red Charm'

An indulgent, sturdy, early flowering, herbaceous perennial with large, fragrant, deep ruby red cup-shaped flowers with ruffled centres

'Blaze'

An early-mid season, strong and reliable herbaceous variety that’s a floriferous grower. It has beautiful fragrant, semi-double bright red flowers with golden centres

'Peter Brand'

A heavily scented herbaceous perennial with divided foliage, erect stems bearing deep pink-red double flowers, with ruffled inner petals

Which peonies would you choose?

Click on a pic to take your pick!