FLOWERS

 PEACE 

Whether they were offered to soldiers at the Pentagon in 1967 or handed out to demonstrators at the Women’s March in 2017, flowers epitomize peaceful protest. We slide them through a ponytail in a quiet gesture of defiance. We weave a dandelion crown in an homage to summer, joy, and love. They say, “I will not fight.” They are dissidence of the highest, most beautiful order. “I will meet your ugly with my inalienable beauty.” “I will meet your hate with dignity and grace.” A horticultural “When they go low, we go high.”

PASSION AND LOVE

Going to a dinner and giving the wife who is hosting you red roses would not be good move as her husband might get angry because the Rose the red one symbolises passion 

Have you ever realised that ‘rose’ is an anagram of Eros, the Greek god of love? Greek mythology tells it that Chloris, the goddess of flowers, was walking in the woods one day when she came across a lifeless nymph. Saddened by its untimely demise, she transformed it into a flower so beautiful that it would be judged The Queen of Flowers by all of Mount Olympus. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and mother of Eros, named it ‘rose’ in honour of her son. 

The rose’s association with devotion can be traced back to another Greek myth. Legend has it that when Aphrodite discovered a murder plot against her mortal lover, Adonis, she dashed through a rose bush to warn him and cut her ankles on its thorns. Her blood turned the white petals red. 

POWER 

THE WARS OF THE ROSES 

In order to celebrate the  union of England , the white rose emblem of the Yorkists, and the red rose of the Lancastrians were combined to create the Tudor Rose, which comprises five red outer petals, and five white inner ones.

 Henry the Seventh had finally finished the wars of the roses and he created a badge where the roses of both warring parties were emblazoned into one. In those day it meant a powerful symbol of power

 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Wordsworth one of the greatest English poets wrote about flowers frequently. Here is his most famous

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

SHAKESPEARE 

‘When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.’

THE GREAT WAR

Poppies were a common sight, especially on the Western Front. They flourished in the soil churned up by the fighting and shelling. The flower provided Canadian doctor John McCrae with inspiration for his poem 'In Flanders Fields', which he wrote whilst serving in Ypres in 1915. It was first published in Punch, having been rejected by The Spectator. In 1918, in response to McCrae's poem, American humanitarian Moina Michael wrote 'And now the Torch and Poppy Red, we wear in honor of our dead…'. She campaigned to make the poppy a symbol of remembrance of those who had died in the war.

Artificial poppies were first sold in Britain in 1921 to raise money for the Earl Haig Fund in support of ex-servicemen and the families of those who had died in the conflict. They were supplied by Anna Guérin, who had been manufacturing the flowers in France to raise money for war orphans. Selling poppies proved so popular that in 1922 the British Legion founded a factory - staffed by disabled ex-servicemen - to produce its own. It continues to do so today.

Other charities sell poppies in different colours, each with their own meaning but all to commemorate the losses of war. White poppies, for example, symbolise peace without violence and purple poppies are worn to honour animals killed in conflict.

The poppy continues to be sold worldwide to raise money and to remember those who lost their lives in the First World War and in subsequent conflicts.