Clare Florist Blog

The Clare Florist prize draw winner for August was Miss Blair of Birmingham.
Miss Blair wins a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers worth £50 which will be delivered free to her with our compliments.

Send lovely fresh flowers throughout the UK, next day and without any fuss - Clare Florist.

When trying to pick the perfect bouquet, besides choosing the variety that will send the right message, the biggest headache must be choosing the best colour or combination of colours! As Oscar Wilde once wrote, "Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways."

Meanings associated with different colours, and his/her favourite colour aside, each colour is said to have subtle effects on our mental states caused by the neurological effects from the different frequencies of colour lightwaves. So, whether you want to create a particular mood for your room, or seek some flowery therapy for the soul, some knowledge of the powers of each colour will go a long way!

Red - Ahhh..the colour of warmth. With the longest wavelength, it is also the colour associated with blood and energy - perfect if your room is in need of an energy boost, or stir up some warm feelings in that special someone!

Suggestion - Roses or the Clare Florist Tropical Red Anthuriums

or for a slightly darker shade of red:  Black Cala (which are in reality not black but more a dark maroon - still lovely though)

Yellow - Wake up to some sunny yellow flowers for an injection of optimism and alertness. Eye catching and memory stimulating, yellow flowers not only look delicious and brighten up any gloomy rooms, they also do wonders for those who would rather be more decisive.

Suggestions: Sunflowers, Mango Cala, Yellow lilies

Orange - For those with hay fever or dust allergies, befriend the Orange flowers! Orange is said to improve immune and digestive systems, with the psychological effect of making us cheerful and more warm-hearted. 

Suggestion: orange roses and gerbera

Blue - Calming and non threatening, blue flowers are particularly good for those in need of some relaxation and a good night sleep. It's said to suppress appetites though..so perhaps not the best flowers to put in the kitchen!

Suggestion: blue collection

Green - Another relaxing colour..green flowers are not only great for getting rid of stress, they also aid concentration - making them ideal for study rooms or offices.

Suggestions: anthurium, lime bouquet

For all the colours why not have a look at our Colour Collections range of flowers.

Have you ever wondered where all those lovely fancy double worded latin names for plants and creatures come from? This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Carl Linnaeus, the man who originally came up with the system for taxonomy. In the famous Swede's own words "If you do not know the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost”. Today, biologists, botanists and taxonomists still describe and order plants, animals and people with names like bellis perennis (lawn daisy), or homo sapiens (human).

The Linnean Classification System

The life of Carl Linnaeus was full of illustrious achievements. The most notable and exciting one, must be his innovative classification system for plants! - 23 classes of flowering plants (plus one for those that don't flower) was used to classify all plants based on the number, size and arrangement of their stamens.

The classification system in fact was rather sexy, as Linnaeus would use the male and female organs of each plant to classify them into groups, offering an easy way for even the most amateur of us to identify what a plant is. To give an idea of the scandalous nature of some of these names - a plant of the Monogynia order within the Tetrandria class can be thought of one wife with four husbands! Despite being disapproved by some of his contemporaries, the classification system quickly became popular throughout Europe and was widely used by all.

Flower Clock

Another interesting idea of Linnaeus, described in Philosophia Botanica (1751) was that of a floral clock. Since some flowers (those in the group of Aequinoctales) have fixed times for opening and closing regardless of the weather, by arranging plants in their order of flowering, this can be used to tell the time accurately to within half an hour! Although it is thought that Linnaeus never managed to plant one of his own, the idea became popular in the 19th century where flower beds can be planted in a circle and segmented into 12 parts. For more information on which flowers should be used to mark the different hours, take a look at:

this bbc page or for an example javascript floral clock.

Celebrating the anniversary of Carl Linnaeus with floral art

Finally, in relation to the 300th anniversary, the Linnean Society of London will be holding the LAPADA Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair from 11-14th October 2007, where the theme will be "The Glory of the Flower - floral motifs in art and antiques". Perfect for those of us who appreciate seeing the vast varieties of flowers being expressed in different ways within works of art!

Prepared by Tracy, posted by Bob.

With the sunshine finally (and very slowly!) approaching us, it's the perfect time to decorate your houses with some summery flowers that will make you smile. Looking through our summer collection, I stumbled across our bouquet of sunflowers that are currently on special offer:

Sensational Sunflowers from Clare Florist

And what represents the joy of being under glorious sunshine better than sunflowers?

Not only are sunflowers one of the more useful flowers - producing sunflower seeds and sunflower oil for our consumption just to name a few, they are also known to symbolise longevity and adoration. At the more political end of the spectrum, they are also the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons which stemmed from their representation of hope.

Some interesting trivia about sunflowers:

• According to legends, the original form of the sunflower was a water-nymph named Clytie. Besotted by the beauty of the Sun God, Apollo, she would stare at him all day. Her love was never returned, and after starving herself for 9 days, she became rooted to the ground, and other gods who took pity on her turned her into the sunflower. Today she is still in love with the Sun!
• The sunflower myth - if a girl puts three sunflower seeds down her back, she will marry the first boy she meets. Hmm..not sure I would like to try that.
• The florets (which are the centre of the flower) of sunflowers form one of the most mesmerizing patterns infused with symmetrical beauty seen amongst cut flowers. For the more mathematically inclined - if you look closely enough, you will see that the florets form interconnecting spirals, where the number of right and left spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers. Each floret is also oriented to the next at roughly the golden angle, constituting a delectable visual feast. Ideal flowers to give to the mathematicians and scientist friends and relatives amongst you!
• These beautiful yellow flowers have also inspired many artwork and literature in the past, the most notable of which may be the series of paintings done by Van Gogh which captured the life of sunflowers at different stages. A random fact - according to some research, Van Gogh's Sunflowers was the painting most preferred by bees!

That's it for now...except for a poem by William Blake for a little sunflower pondering for today.

'Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!'