For the downfall of sweet peas, fragrance-loving gardeners still point an angry finger at Althorp and its longtime gardener, Silas Cole. I, but not my cousin Ben, am descended from the Spencer family of England, and even wear the name. Over the years my dear cousin, a magnificent gardener, rather unkindly pointed out that the […]
The red poppy, and ritual remembrance, numb the realities of war. At the 11th hour of the 11th month of the 11th day, Allied powers signed the Armistice with Germany in 1918, ending World War I. The moment will be remembered November 11 in many countries, including Australia, Canada, the U.S., and the United Kingdom. […]
For Madrid’s grandest festival, admission is free. But there’s a floral badge to belong. How does a sodbuster become a saint? Like anyone else: with miracles and the pullies of culture. Isidro de Merlo y Quintana (1070 -1130) more than qualified. Supernatural accountants attribute 438 miracles to the Spanish farmer. Two of his most renowned: […]
A set of beauties protruding from flower heads helped hawk packs of cigarettes. Dimly we remember little coupons inside packets of Raleigh and Old Gold cigarettes, but by the time we took up this fiendish habit in the late 1960s, nobody much smoked Old Golds. (What did those coupons get you, anyway?) “Premiums” were […]
Genzano, Italy, celebrates the feast of Corpus Christi with flowered carpets, all the way to the church door. Do flowers honor miracles, or is it the other way around? The Italians, who seem particularly well versed in such matters, answer ambiguously, with the spring tradition of infiorata, flower fairs. This weekend, June 17-20, brings one […]
With a tragedy in Russia, mourners and their florists turn to an old figure of Eastern Orthodox iconography, shaped like a seed. Overnight floods in Krymsk, a southern Russia city east of the Black Sea, killed at least 172 people early Sunday morning. There had been no warning, even though authorities later admitted having known […]
Aung San Suu Kyi’s signature flowers, reaching back to childhood in Burma, arrived with her in Oslo. Twenty-one years after it was awarded to her, Aung San Suu Kyi accepted her Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway, June 16. Leader of the Burmese opposition movement, political prisoner, and now a member of Myanmar’s Parliament, […]
Should a community garden director be free to hawk her Olympic torch? Sarah Milner Simonds was honored by the Olympic committee to carry the Olympic torch along part of its route to the 2012 summer games. Simonds, a 38-year-old horticulturist, was chosen for her work with People’s Plot, “a community allotment in South Acton [West […]
From “Please, Don’t Eat the Daisies” to “Holy Motors,” devouring flowers takes on a sinister new flavor. A wild image of French actor Denis Lavant is making the rounds this week. Have you seen it? Eyes crossed and bare chest exposed beneath his jacket, he is running down the street chomping a bundle of red […]
The new Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Colombia went into effect yesterday. Colombian flowers are that country’s major export to the U.S. and have gobbled up the U.S. market since the early 1990s. Interest in locally grown U.S. flowers is swelling into advocacy, “the 50-mile bouquet” gaining the moral high ground from organics […]