Clare Florist Blog

"There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose as lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps." (Archibald Thompson)

In Europe in the Middle Ages, Mothering Sunday revolved around the Christian tradition of 'Refreshment Sunday', and the returning of young labourers and apprentices to their homes, but the holiday all but died out by the 19th century. It was revived following the second world war, brought over from the USA where it had become a commercial holiday.

Long before either of these periods, however, ancient peoples recognised the need to honour and celebrate motherhood. These ancient mother's days often revolved around goddesses who personified motherhood.

Gaia was the great Earth Mother of the ancient Greeks, mother of the sea and sky. She is still worshipped today in Neopagan and Wiccan circles, as the being that is the Earth and as the Goddess of creation.

Another celebrated Greek mother goddess was Gaia's daughter, Rhea, mother of the gods. The Romans called her Cybele and held festivities in honour of her from March 22nd-25th. Like Gaia, she represented the great mother Earth, the fertile fields and wild mountains. The celebrations held in her honour were so wild that Cybele's followers were banished from Rome!

Meanwhile, in the Celtic tradition it was Brigid who was the goddess of unity, healing, childbirth, poetry and fire. She was worshipped in the early Spring celebration of Imbolc, which marked the first of the ewes' milk — the sacred motherly nourishment. After the pagan traditions were overtaken by Christianity, Brigid persisted in the form of St. Brigid, patron saint of Ireland, whose saint day is February 1st, the eve of Candlemass and Imbolc.

As these and the hundreds of other worldwide mother Goddesses suggest, the invaluable and  difficult role that mothers hold —Goddesses, in a sense, every one— is well worthy of honouring.

A Wonderful Mother  (Pat O'Reilly)

God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He molded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks, fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.

A couple of weekends ago, I was lucky enough to catch a preview screening of Juno, which was released on February 8th, in time for Valentine's Day. It's an offbeat comedy which tells the story of the title character Juno, an American high-school girl faced with an unplanned pregnancy. In the film, Juno explains the origin of her unusual name, which is that of the Roman Queen of the Gods. What they don't say in the film is that the goddess Juno was associated with women and marriage and that February 14th was once a holiday in her honour. In fact, this may be part of the reason that the tradition of Valentine's Day arose. The following day, February 15th was also a festival in ancient Rome, known as Lupercalia. One of the customs at this time was that on the eve of Lupercalia unmarried Roman girls would put their names on slips of paper that would be placed in jars. The young men of the place would then take names from the jars to determine which girl would be their partner for the festivities. They might even be paired for the entire year, and often their chance partnership would extend into romance and marriage.

A similar lottery became popular in Britain in the Middle Ages. The names of young men and women would be drawn from a bowls in pairs and the men would wear the name of their selected valentine on their sleeve for a week (perhaps the origin of the modern day expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve”). They would exchange gifts and the man would be honour bound to protect his young lady in the year ahead.

And what of St Valentine after whom the day is named? There are a number of stories and different St Valentines but the best known tale tells of a time when the Emperor Claudius II decreed that all marriages and engagements would be cancelled so that his soldiers would not be distracted from their soldierly duties by the commitments of love and family. St Valentine, who was a priest in Rome at the time, secretly married couples against the will of Claudius and when this was discovered he was sentenced to death by beating and beheading. Thus he was martyred, as it so happens, on February 14th and declared the Saint of Lovers. He is also said to have cured the jailer's daughter of blindness and, before he was dragged off for his sentence, to have left her a farewell note signed “from your Valentine”, as we might sign our Valentine's cards today.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Long gone are the days of associating Chrysanthemums with funerals and crummy old rooms. Vibrant with exhilarating colours and varieties, and durable beyond most cut flowers, they are the current hippest favourites in town!

In fact, I've always wondered about the name. As it turns out, the flower was named by Mr. Linnaeus (mentioned a couple of entries ago), the funky long name coming from a combination of the Greek 'krus' meaning gold and 'anthemum' meaning flower. 

In Japan, the gold flower has always been viewed as symbol of the sun. There, Chrysanthemums have a long history of being used to represent divine authority, where the throne is referred as the Chrysanthemum throne. The Japanese even have a special festival dedicated to it!

For the Chinese also, the flower is of a special value - East Asian species of these golden beauties are often boiled with rock sugar to make the powerful throat healing, fever cooling remedial herbal tea. There's also a city named after Chrysanthemums in China!

Unfortunately the Chrysanthemums in your lovely bouquet won't be edible! Just as well..according to Feng Shui, they will bring endless amount of laughter and happiness to your home - so leave them on display! Other symbolism of the flower include longevity and nobility, they are great for adding that royal touch to any rooms.

And of course, these colourful delights are perfect for making eye-catching arrangements, you can get some inspirations for possibilities of what to do with them here.

We will soon have some of these enchanting chrysanthemum bouquets in stock - look out for them!!

P.S. Another piece of trivia - there's a type of firework that's named Chrysanthemum for its resemblence to the flower!

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.

Prepared by Viki, posted by Bob

The use of scents and such like by humans goes way way back in history. So far in fact, that it seems no one actually knows when we started to make them. To give you some idea, the Egyptians put down roots in the fourth millennium B.C. At this time, they already used plants and flowers to make scented oils and balms. The increased demand in needing these raw materials meant that inventive ways evolved of extracting the scents, such as pressing and pulverization, and so, the first steps were made into the production of essential oils by distillation.

Possibly even earlier civilizations offered flowers and herbs to their Gods. This is backed up by archaeological findings, oral tradition and very early writings.

Roman writings describe how fragrances were used lavishly – following the spread of the use of perfumes to the western world. The use of perfume changed from being for mainly religious purposes to being for “the person”. This caused a sway towards the perfume industry as we now know it – bringing employment and industrial advantage to the community.

After the Roman Empire fell (in the Middle Ages), so too did all the inroads that they had made into the perfume industry in Europe. It became again a mainly religious sanction. The beginning of the 13th century saw trade to the Orient being re-established and so the emergence of further exotic flowers, herbs and spices . The Arab races were knowledgeable in alchemy and distillation by this time. Venice emerged as the centre of the perfume trade and this rapidly spread to other countries throughout Europe.

For at least 4000 years the manufacture of perfumes and relating – aromas, cosmetics etc. came from natural sources (i.e. animal or vegetable). Despite the long tradition of making perfumes and scents, the first synthetic fragrance material was not made until the late 18th century. With the increase of synthetic ways of making the perfumes increasing, so too did the perfumes industry as a whole. Many still preferred the natural way of doing things (as we have recently seen a major trend towards returning to), and thought that the synthetic raw materials had a harsh and possibly distasteful aroma to them.

The mass-production of perfumes using synthetic materials continues to this day, although there has recently been an increase towards the natural and organic (not only in perfumes – but other cosmetics, food etc.) Many now choose to make their own perfume and skincare products – to name but 2 areas. I will show you ways of doing this in the coming weeks... so keep watching!

Prepared by Viki, posted by Bob