Flowers from the Heart

With Valentine’s day here I was thinking about how many flowers refer to love or to the the heart in their names.  If you ask me  the Victorians took it too an extreme with the whole language of flowers thing.  Each flower had a specific meaning you were trying to communicate to the person you gave them to. Some types of flowers like roses, had  entirely different meanings for each different color.  Sounds way too complicated for me, kinda like a flower Morse code.     I’m a  big fan of mixing whatever is in bloom in our yard and looks nice for making bouquets. I hope no one I’ve ever given a bouquet to tried to decipher a meaning! It probably said something totally nuts! Here are few examples I took from ‘The Language of Flowers Book’:  

• Candytuft – Indifference
• Begonia – Beware
• Poppy – Eternal Sleep
• Violet – Modesty
• Daffodil – Unrequited Love
• Heather- Admiration
• Cactus – Endurance (what?)    
• Crocus – Cheerfulness
• Forget- Me-Not – True Love
• Dead leaves –  Sadness   (Well duh!)

Anyway…. back to a few plants we grow that do have the word love or heart in their name.

Love in a Mist 

(Nigella)

   Love -in- a -mist is a delicate looking annual that if allowed to self sow too freely can become ‘Love – in- a -deep -fog’.  We have a beautiful patch that I keep just on the verge of getting out of control!  It’s a great filler in small bouquets and has an interesting seed pod. Its blooms range in colors of white, blue and pink.

Love Lies Bleeding

(Amaranthus caudatus)

 

Despite its somewhat graphic name, Love- Lies-Bleeding, is one of my favorite annual flowers.  It has gorgeous deep red pendulous flowers that can give any bouquet a dramatic effect.  You can  even dry the flowers and they retain their color fairly well.

Bleeding Heart

 (Dicentra spectabilis)

 

This old fashioned perennial can be quite long lived in your garden.  We have one that’s been happily announcing spring for almost 15 years in a cool shady spot under a Japanese Maple Tree.  The dainty pink flowers of Dicentra look like tiny hearts that open up to a white center and gracefully hang down from their arching stems.  The foliage is ferny looking and will die back late in the summer.  There is also a pure white variety.

Heartleaf Bergenia

(Bergenia cordifolia)

  The large heart shaped leaves  of this perennial  plant turn a beautiful bronze color in cold weather.  Its flowers appear in late winter to early spring  and are a sweet, rosey-pink color.  Bergenias appreciate cooler temperatures  and are happiest in a shady or woodland garden.

Lovage

(Levisticum officinale)

      O.K. maybe that’s pushin’ it but I was running out of plants.  Lovage is a hardy perennial and a fairly forgotten kitchen herb. The leaves and stalks have a taste similar to celery.  In fact the whole plant looks like a stalk of celery, a very, very, big stalk of celery!  It grows 4-6′ tall and when it blooms it  is covered with all kinds of pollinating bees and insects.   Nothing bothers it, except for larvae of the beautiful swallowtail butterflies, which might nibble a few leaves but you’ll hardly notice.  Besides the butterflies are always worth it!

Well my friends, Happy Valentines Day!  My wish for all of you is to love and be loved.

Now back to my figuring our my new funky photo editor.

 Did you notice all the little hearts and cupids?

 Pretty cool, huh?

 Now I just have to figure out the sizing thingy, but it involves  me working with numbers so I’m not super optimistic!