Flowers

Also see Gardening, Spring and Trees.

Page Toppers

April Showers Bring May Flowers
Beware of Snap Dragons!
Bloom where you are planted
Bluebonnet Beauty
Bouquet of Roses
(song by Eddy Arnold)
Bright as Flowers
Be thy Life's Hours
Buy Me a Rose
(song by Kenny Rogers)
Crazy Daisy
Daisy Day
A Dozen Red Roses
(song by Tammy Graham)
The Earth Laughs in Flowers
Eleven Roses
(song by Hank Williams, Jr.)
Everything's Coming Up Roses
(song by Ethel Merman)
Flower Child
Flower Patch
Flower Power
Flowers are God's way of smiling.
Flowers are the stars of the earth.

Flowers feed the soul. (Mohammed)
Gather ye Rosebuds While ye May
Good Year For the Roses
(song by Elvis Costello)
Lone Star Splendor (BlueBonnets)
May all your weeds be wildflowers
Moonlight and Roses
(song by Lanny Ross)
The One Rose
(song by Johnny Cash)
Quiet...Bulbs are Resting!
Ramblin' Rose
(song by Nat King Cole)
Really Rosie
(song by Carole King)
Red Roses Won't Work Now
(song by Reba McEntire)
Red Roses for a Blue Lady
(song by Bobby Vinton)
Room Full of Roses
(song by Jim Reeves)
Rose Garden
(song by k.d. lang)
A Rose is Still a Rose
(song by Aretha Franklin)
Roses and Thorns
(song by Michael Martin Murphy)
Roses and Rainbows
(song by Three Dog Night)
San Antonio Rose
(song by Bob Wills)
Say it with Flowers
Second Hand Rose
(song by Roy Drusky)
Seize the Daisies
Stop and Smell the Roses
(song by Mac Davis)
Sunshine, Lollipops and Roses
(song by Leslie Gore)
Take Time to Smell the Flowers
Texas Treasure (BlueBonnets)
Tiptoe through the tulips
True Love Turns Weeds into Flowers
Two Dozen Roses
(song by Shenandoah)
A weed is just an unloved flower.
A weed is just a flower in disguise.
Where the Lilies Bloom
Where the Wild Roses Grow
(song by Nick Cave)
Wild about Wildflowers
Yellow Rose of Texas
(song by Mitch Miller)

Many of the song titles in the above list come from Eric's Thematic Songlists

Quotes

All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.
Don't wait for someone to bring you flowers...Plant your own garden!
Flowers are love's truest language.
Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. (Lydia M. Child)
The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size. (Gertrude S. Wister)
Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. (John Ruskin)
For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! (Edward Abbey)
Garden fairies come at dawn. Bless the flowers then they're gone.
How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew! (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one. (Edna St. Vincent Millay from Afternoon on a Hill)
It is believing in roses that one brings them to bloom.
Old florists never die, they just make other arrangements.
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. (Iris Murdoch)
Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. (Veronica A. Shoffstall)
A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring. (William Carlos Williams)
Still in bloom, California flowers dance to winter song. (Victor P. Gendrano)
'Tis my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes. (William Wordsworth)
Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.

Page Ideas

Put the yellow-dot flower landscape die-cut on top of the raspberry one with the yellow one slightly lower and to the left. Cut a strip of green paper using the alpine scissors. Put the green paper on top of the die-cuts about 1/2 inch below the yellow dot die-cut. Put this at the bottom of a page and use small flower and insect stickers on the page.
Cut one flower picture in a circle and mat on brown or yellow paper. Cut other flower picture in petal shapes and arrange around the circle picture. Mat the petals if it looks better.
To make a quick flower cut a circle into 8 equal pieces like a pie. Remove on piece. Round the corners of the wide ends of the other 7 pieces. Arrange on the page and put a circle cut photo over the center of the petals.
Flower Mosaic (Denny)
Iris Mosaic (Denny)

Things to Do If You Are a Flower

Be a wonderful color, like purplish pink.
Stay out in the rain.
Understand what the wind says.
Dance to its rhythms.
Grow toward the sun.
Smell good.
Give bees honey.
Count every star.
Be beautiful.

Count Your Blessings

Count your garden by the flowers,
never by the leaves that fall.
Count your days by garden hours,
don't remember clouds at all.

Count your nights by stars, not shadows.
Count your years with smiles, not tears.
Count your blessing, not your troubles.
Count your age by friends, not by years.

The City

(David Ignatow)

If flowers want to grow
right out of concrete sidewalk cracks
I'm going to bend down and smell them.

Planting Flowers

Take some dirt, add some seeds,
Pour on water, pull the weeds,
Rest a minute, work for hours,
Then just wait to smell the flowers.

The Yellow Tulip

(George Swede)

For weeks
it struggled
through the hard crust
of the spring earth
and a foot
of air

Just to be
scorched
by the sun
jolted
by raindrops
blasted
by the wind

But on this gentle
May morning
as it opens
yellow petals
to the sky
Nothing else matters

The Daffodils

(Aileen Fisher)

The daffodils, the daffodils,
they plan it all ahead:
they bottle yellow sunshine up
to take along to bed.
They know that they will sleep for months
till cold and snow are gone,
and so they bottle sunshine up
before they start to yawn.
And then when spring is not-quite warm,
and days are not quite mellow,
they poke up little goblets full
of yellow, yellow, yellow.

Legend of the Daffodil

Each time
a guardian angel
notices
a good deed -
a prayer,
kindness
or sacrifice -
she plucks
a gold star
from the heavens
and sends it to earth,
where it blooms
as a golden daffodil.

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I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

(William Wordsworth)

I wander'd 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.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Daisies

(Frank Dempster Sherman)

At evening when I go to bed
I see the stars shine overhead.
They are the little daisies white
That dot the meadow of the night.

And often while I'm dreaming so,
Across the sky the moon will go.
It is a lady, sweet and fair,
Who comes to gather daisies there.

For, when at morning I arise,
There's not a star left in the skies,
She's picked them all
and dropped them down
Into the meadows of the town.

Thoughts of a Little Girl

(Maria Enriqueta)

I think flowers can see
and clouds play a game,
that when the wind whispers,
the leaves understand.
They sway and they dance
in the mad-cap breeze.

Sometimes in the morning
to the meadow I go,
where the daisies are playing
in the wind.

First the wind whispers,
then runs, jumps and tickles their feet.
And the daisies, their heads sweetly nodding,
laugh, sway and shiver in glee.

To a Wild Rose

(Merrilou Thomas)

Fairest of flowers sprinkled with dew,
You blossom in summer and bring beauty new.
There's no way to tell you how lovely you are ...
You're bright as the sunshine compared to a star.
Your perfume floats softly o'er meadow and hill
And when, comes the winter, it lingers there still.
You brighten the pathway, entwine with the tree.
No, there's not a flower as lovely as thee.

My Wild Rose

(from Walls of Corn and Other Poems by Ellen P. Allerton)

I had a garden, which I kept
With busy hands and tender care;
And once, while carelessly I slept,
Fanned softly by the drowsy air,
A wild rose to my garden crept,
And blossomed there.

O, sweet surprise. It seemed to me,
Some fair hand, my heart to bless,
Had brought it there, from wood or lee.
It came unsought 'twas loved no less;
I stooped and touched it tenderly,
With soft caress.

I grew to love it passing well;
While strange exotics, rich and rare,
With heart of gold and crimson bell,
Paid grudgingly for constant care,
My wild rose, as in a woodland dell,
Bloomed fresh and fair.

I watered not, I did not prune,
I tied it not with cord or thong;
Yet, morn by morn and noon by noon,
Through days of summer, hot and long,
And underneath the midnight moon,
From branches strong

Hung clustered blossoms sweet and red;
And day by day and week by week,
I trod the path which toward it lead.
Whate'er my mood. I did not speak,
But close against bowed my head
And pressed my cheek.

I think of it with sudden thrill.
Now wide lands lie, deep water flows,
Smiles many a vale, looms many a hill
Between me and the garden-close;
Yet fondly I remember still
My sweet wild rose.

Two Dandelion Poems

A dandelion doesn't roar
Which is a lucky thing
With all the millions that there are
That would be frightening.

When I went out to play today
I found dandelions yellow and gay
And then when I came in tonight
The dandelions had turned to white.

Ode to a Dandelion

(Rea Williams)

Though others may curse you for a weed,
To destroy they deem their duty,
For me you are a lovely flower
And I revel in your beauty.

You're first to show your brilliant color
After winter's bitter cold.
You're truly springtime's harbinger
With your delicate mounds of gold.

Your flowers are food for a weary soul,
Your leaves a zesty tonic -
Such succulent flavor they contain
It makes us feel bionic.

I know your color soon will fade
But your seeds are avian food -
So, like the wind and thus the flower,
It's ill that blows no good.

In God's great plan for nature
Everything does have it's place
And I, for one, am always glad
To see your smiling face.

A Special Bouquet

A rose can say "I love you."
Orchids can enthrall,
But a weed bouquet in a chubby fist,
Oh my, that says it all!

In Defense of the Dandelion

(Samuel Pickering, Jr.)

Spring has arrived and so have the dandelions. Here by the porch, there by the drive, everywhere. For years I struggles to get rid of them. One summer I wore out a pair of leather gloves digging them up. Another summer our dog Fred almost died from drinking the weed killer I mixed in the garage.

I'm older now and have learned better. I just sit on the porch and leave the dandelions alone. In fact, we have grown fond of one another.

I have decided that the real American Beauty isn't the rose but the dandelion. The common dandelion is not a native American. Like most of our ancestors, it didn't travel first class, and there is no record of its arrival on our shores. All we know is that it seems to have come from Europe, and like those "huddled masses" who sought a better life in a newer world, the dandelion put down roots and thrived.

Grateful for the opportunity to settle, it was content to make wayside and wasteland bloom. Unlike the cultivated rose, the dandelion is, in its stem of stems, a Populist. It generally prefers hard homesteading on barren ground to pampered living in potting soil. The dandelion smiles just as brightly amid backyard tenement clutter as it does beneath the boxwood border of an English garden. In contrast to the formal rose, which makes a sticking point of ceremony and can be prickly with those who do not show proper deference, the dandelion is friendly. It even enjoys the company of children as they weave it into garlands.

The dandelion lives a clean and simple life. It opens and blooms at sunrise and, closing up tightly, goes to bed at sunset. It keeps healthy and respectable hours because it is a family flower. One hundred to 200 florets compose its yellow blossom. As the florets mature and are finally pollinated, the dandelion's stem lengthens. Sacrificing its position in the world, the dandelion now lives for its children, closing one last time until the florets have grown into seeds and are ready to leave home. Then the gray globe expands so the seeds can catch a breeze and start out well in life.

No other flower embodies the American spirit as well as the dandelion. When the going gets tough, pansies and petunias wilt. Neither the strong winds nor heavy rains can break the dandelion. When the petals of the dogwood blossoms are scattered and the peony is beaten to the ground, the dandelion still holds its head up bravely.

Unlike the southern Magnolia or sagebrush, the dandelion is not tied to a particular region of the country. It is truly a National flower. Moreover, it is a flower for all months and all climates; from January to December, the dandelion blossoms somewhere. It may be found in Arizona under the shadow of the saguaro cactus, in Florida's orange groves or on a ledge in Colorado's mountains.

Such a flower is a bright sign of hope, and when winter comes and days and nights seem black, remember that somewhere in America, the dandelion is blooming.

Flowers for each Month

Month	Flower	Color	Meaning	Alternate flowers
JAN	Carnation	red, pink, white	deep love, fidelity	Snowdrop
FEB	Violet	violet, purple	faithfulness, purity	Iris, Primrose
MAR	Daffodil	yellow	cheerfulness, new beginnings	Jonquil
APR	Daisy	various	loyalty, playfulness, tenacity	Sweet Pea
MAY	Lily of the Valley	white	humility, sweetness	Hawthorne
JUN	Rose	various	happiness, love, friendship	Honeysuckle
JUL	Larkspur	various	good luck, humor	Water Lily, Tulip
AUG	Gladiolus	various	beauty, strength of character	Poppy
SEP	Aster	pink, purple	devotion, joy	Morning Glory
OCT	Calendula	orange	contentment, gratitude	Marigold, Cosmos
NOV	Chrysanthemum	various	cheerfulness, friendship	Orchid
DEC	Holly	green and red	celebration, prosperity	Poinsettia, Narcissus

Official State Flowers

American Beauty Rose - Washington, DC
Apple Blossom - AR, MI
Big Laurel - WV
Bitteroot - MT
Black-Eyed Susan - MD
Bluebonnet - TX
Camellia - AL
Carolina Jessamine - SC
Cherokee Rose - GA
Coast Rhododendron - WA
Columbine (white and lavender) - CO
Dogwood - NC, VA
Golden Poppy - CA
Goldenrod - KY, NE
Hawthorn Blossom - MO
Indian Paintbrush - WY
Iris - TN
Magnolia - LA, MS
Mayflower - MA
Mistletoe - OK
Mountain Laurel - CT, PA

Native Forget Me Not - AK
Orange Blossom - FL
Oregon Grape - OR
Pasque Flower - SD
Peach Blossom - DE
Peony - IN
Pink and White Lady Slipper - MN
Purple Lilac - NH
Red Clover - VT
Rose - NY
Sagebrush - NV
Saguaro Cactus Blossom - AZ
Scarlet Carnation - OH
Sego Lily - UT
Sunflower - KS
Syringa - ID
Violet - IL, NJ, RI, WI
White Pine Cone and Tassel - ME
Wild Prairie Rose - IA, ND
Yellow Hibiscus - HI
Yucca Flower - NM

Official State Wild Flowers

Azalea - GA
Carolina Lily - NC
Coreopsis - FL
Dwarf Lake Iris - MI
Indian Blanket - OK

Large White Trillium - OH
Louisiana Iris - LA
Oak-leaf Hydrangea - AL
Passion Flower - TN
Pink Lady's Slipper - NH

Flower Lore

(Compiled by Denny Davis)

A garland of VIOLETS worn around the head prevents dizziness
If you dream of VIOLETS you will advance in life

Flower ABC's

(Compiled by Bonnie Jasperson and Denny Davis)

A - annual, amaryllis, african lily, alpine thistle, arum, ageratum, amaranthus, aster, artemesia, allium, amaryllis, anemone, anthurium, azalea, arbutus, apple blossom, acacia
B - bloom, blossom, bulb, bouquet, baby's breath, bee balm, bell flower, bergamot, bottlebrush, bird of paradise, bouvardia, begonia, bindweed, bluebell, borage, buttercup, bachelor's button, blue salvia, biennial, black-eyed Susan
C - crocus, columbine, Christmas cactus, calla lily, carnation, cockscomb, cornflower, cone flower, corsage, cosmos, chrysanthemum, calendula, cherry blossom, camellia, clematis, clover, coreopsis, cowslip, candytuft, cyclamen, chives, calliopsis, catnip, Cherokee rose
D - daffodil, daisy, dirt, day lily, dianthus, delphinium, dahlia, dandelion, dendrobium orchid, didiscus, drumstick, dutch iris, dill
E - Easter lily, evening primrose, eremurus, everlasting, enchanter's nightshade, euphorbia, eustoma
F - fern, florist, flower, flower shop, fragrance, forsythia, feverfew, forget-me-not, foxglove, freesia, flax, fuschia
G - grass, grape hyacinth, greenhouse, gentian, geranium, gillyflower, goldenrod, gladiolus, gardenia, gerbera daisy, globe amaranth
H - hyacinth, hot house, herbs, heather, heliotrope, hemlock, hollyhock, hydrangea, heath aster, heliconia, hypericum, honeysuckle
I - iris, ixia, ivy, Indian plume, Indian pink, imperial montague, ice plant, Iceland moss, Irish heath, impatiens, Indian blanket, Indian paintbrush
J - jonquil, jasmine, justicia, Jacob's ladder, jubilee marigold
K - Kansas feather, kangaroo paw, king cups, kennedia
L - lilac, lily of the valley, lady's slipper, larkspur, lavender, lily, leptospermum, liatris, lisianthus, laburnum, lobelia, lupin, limonium, ladybell
M - marigold, mimosa, monkshood, moth orchid, mum, magnolia, maidenhair fern, marjoram, marguerite daisy, michaelmas daisy, mistletoe, mock orange, mullein, myrtle, morning glory, may flower, mountain laurel
N - narcissus, nasturtium, nettle, nightshade, nerine lily, night-blooming cereus, Nigella (fennel), Nemisia
O - orchid, ox-eye daisy, obedient plant, oleander, orange blossom, our lady's mantle, oriental poppy
P - perfume, potpourri, pots, poppy, petunia, poinsettia, pansy, perennial, peony, plumed thistle, prairie gentian, phalaenopsis orchid, passion-flower, periwinkle, phlox, primrose, pitcher plan, pompom, protea, primrose, peach blossom
Q - queen Anne's lace, queen Fabiola lily, queen's rocket, quince, quaking grass
R - rose, red-hot poker, ranunculus, rose moss, rosemary, rocket, ragged robin, rainbow aster, rhododendron, rose of Sharon, rambling rose
S - stemen, safflower, scarlet plume, sea lavender, snapdragon, spider orchid, star of bethlehem, sunflower, sweet pea, sweet William, scabiosa, star gazer lily, statice, stephanotis, stock, salvia, snowdrop, syringa, sea lavender, strawflower, sweetheart rose, shasta daisy, syringa
T - tulip, tansy, thistle, tuberose, tritoma, tassel flower, trachelium, transvaal daisy, teasel, thyme, trefoil, trillium, trumpet flower, Texas bluebonnet
U - ulster mary, uropilla, ucandillus, Utah petras flora (desert bonnet)
V - verbena, viburnum, violet, valerian, veronica, venus's trap, venice sumach, viola, vinca, vase
W - waxflower, windflower, watsonia, wormwood, wolfbane, water lily, white jasmine, woodbine, wood anemone, white clover, wildflower, wild prairie rose
X - xanthium, xeranthemim
Y - yarrow, yellow ox-eye, yellow flag, yucca, yellow rose of Texas
Z - zinnia, zantedeschia (arum), zantedeschia (calla lily), zephyr flower