Flowers for holiday occasions

With the holiday season approaching it's good to be prepared for the upcoming rush of social gatherings. A store of knowledge about what to bring to situations makes those last-minute trips to the crowded stores just a little more bearable. Flowers make great presents for just about anyone, particularly hostess gifts. If you plan to attend a holiday party at someone else's home, a token of appreciation goes a long way in guaranteeing your invitation next year. When you choose flowers, knowing what they traditionally represent and being able to explain that helps your offering to seem that much more meaningful. Here's a quick guide to flowers for different occasions:

When to Bring Flowers

Taking flowers to a dinner party for the hostess always goes over well, but some say that a bottle of wine or box of chocolates is more appropriate. Choose flowers over wine if your hosts or the attendees are non-drinkers. Similarly, do not bring chocolates if your hostess has expressed a recent desire to lose weight or is actively dieting. If many people plan to attend the event you are going to, expect that others will bring more wine than your hosts will be able to serve you. If your hosts and/or the attendees have baked pies or cookies for dessert, chocolates will be unnecessary. Flowers, on the other hand, are never something to have too much of—a home can always display more flowers. When attending your significant other's family holiday party, you should bring flowers for your beloved and flowers for his or her mother. Also, if the holiday party doubles as a housewarming, consider bringing flowering plants that can be planted in the garden in springtime.

Flowers for the Hostess

It takes a lot of work to throw a good party, and certain flowers express your gratitude for the amount of effort that went into making your holiday gathering warm and cozy. After all, your host probably spent days cooking and cleaning before you showed up hungry and expecting to be served. White bellflowers, camellias and bluebells all express gratitude. Although tulips can mean love, they also represent fame. If your hostess is well-known for her gala events, tulips can send a fun and playful message about how everyone appreciates the event.

Flowers for the Beloved

With so many flowers that represent love, how do you decide which flowers suit your relationship the best? Why not hand-pick a bouquet l of all the flowers that express your feelings at the florist's shop? Roses are always a good place to start, as everyone knows that receiving roses signifies love from the giver. The color can also say a great deal, though, and your beloved will be thrilled when you explain what they all mean. Traditional red roses stand for love, pink for happiness and grace and orange for desire. A red rose paired with a white one means unity, and the pair is traditionally given on the advent of an engagement. Carnations also make their appearances in most bouquets. Reds signify admiration while whites symbolize pure love. For a newer relationship, purple lilacs express the joy of love's beginning. Flowers that promise faithfulness are baby's breath (in most bouquets anyway), daffodils, ivy and lemon blossoms. White chrysanthemums symbolize truth, and honesty is an important component of every new relationship.

Flowers for a New Home

Moving into a new home represents a scary leap into the future but one also worthy of celebration. Thankfully, flowers will help you express your feelings of well-wishing to the new homeowners. Apple blossoms signify hope for the future and good (or better) fortune ahead. Daisies represent innocence and youth while lilies (particularly white) stand for purity.
Flowers to Remember Those Absent
Holidays can be bittersweet when loved ones cannot be with us. To show your hostess that you are thinking of her child in the military, sick relative or recently departed friend or family, both zinnias and Gerber daisies symbolize thoughts of absent friends. Blue periwinkles mean friendship and could be interpreted as a way of showing solidarity with your hosts. White periwinkles signify pleasures of memory, which has sexual undertones but could also represent happy and platonic thoughts of the absent.

Flowers to Avoid

It's hard to imagine that something as beautiful as a flower might carry a negative meaning, but you wouldn't want to send the wrong message should your explanation of your flower choice miss its mark. To play it safe, you should avoid yellow flowers altogether. Although roses symbolize love, yellow ones can be interpreted as jealousy or the end of a relationship. Yellow carnations imply disdain for the receiver, and yellow chrysanthemums indicate your beloved has wronged you. Yellow lilies can symbolize happiness, but they can also suggest falsehood on either the giver or receiver's end. Marigolds can denote affection, but they more commonly stand for grief. Reserve pink carnations for Mother's Day or for the mother of your beloved if she is your hostess. Because red columbines indicate anxiety, do not present them as a hostess gift ever. Your hostess will be nervous enough without flower symbolism to make it worse. No matter what flowers you choose to bring to the dinner table, your hostess will most likely display them for all the guests to enjoy. Knowing your flower symbolism not only makes you appear a conscientious and appreciative guest but also works as a great conversation starter. Happy picking

Tall, Stinky Flower Sets Height Record

The 20-foot-tall giant titan arum flower bloomed this week in Germany, setting a height record. The flower is already attracting crowds, even though it smells horrible. "Wilhelma" beat its counterpart in Bonn by over 15 inches. The flower is native to Sumatra and is one of the tallest flowers in the world. The bulb for the flower was planted in 1994, and this is the first time it has bloomed. It smells like rotting flesh to attract pollinating insects when the plant's ready to be pollinated. It can live to be 40 years old, but it will only bloom two or three times.

The Magic of Compost for Successful Flower Gardening

If your soil is extremely acid, which can happen in an area with heavy rainfall, or with soil that has had overdoses of chemical N-P-K fertilizer, you may need to add limestone to ‘sweeten’ the soil.
Adding compost can also work wonders if your soil is out of the ideal pH range. This technique will also improve soil that is too sandy, has too much clay, or is low in the organic material that plants need to thrive. If you don’t know much about composting, don’t worry. You can find more information on composting at the Compost Guide.
Soil drainage is also critical to flower gardening. Mixing in compost is the best way to improve drainage. You can also try digging out a good quantity of the soil, around 16 inches deep, and placing a layer of fine gravel at the bottom.

Mulch and Flower Gardening

Mulch and Flower Gardening
If you don’t have humus available from well composted material, you can help your garden through mulching. Mulching is nature’s way of composting. Forests provide a good example of nature’s mulching and composting system.
Forests are a complex growing community. Everything in a forest is related and works together. Leaves and dead branches fall from trees and other forest plants. Bacteria, fungi, nematodes, earthworms, and other habitants of the soil help break down the leaves and other debris into humus.
Humus is a natural living environment that benefits tree and plant roots.To reproduce the mulch that forests naturally create, you can use garden waste from your home, such as shredded leaves, hay, shredded bark, or other similar substance. By spreading the material over the top of your garden dirt, you are mimicking the decomposing leaves and branches that make up a forest floor.
Mulching helps to keep weeds from growing and facilitates moisture retention in the soil. Mulching also begins the process of natural composting. Between treatments, soil organisms help to decompose the mulch that is closest to the ground. Earthworms and other critters that live in the soil pull composted material into the ground and naturally feed your plant’s roots.
You should add a little more mulch each year to your flower garden to keep the process going. You can use mulch even when your soil is in excellent shape. The mulch will keep the soil healthy and productive. You can further support your soil by adding a dose of organic fertilizer. Your mulch will work best when you add this natural fertilizer over the entire garden bed so that the whole area will gradually become healthier.

Gardening Tips

Flower Planting Tips: Off to the Right Start
“There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.”- Gertrude Jekyll
-- Make sure you’ve got healthy soil with plenty of organic material and an appropriate pH level.
-- It is best to plant your flowers, trees and shrubs on a cool or cloudy day to minimize the stress of transplanting. Planting in the early morning or late afternoon also helps.
-- Most flowers should be planted in the spring. Some plants can be planted during other times of the year. Ask your local nurseries for planting tips on the specific plants you want to use.
-- Dig a hole in your freshly worked soil. Put the soil aside to fill the hole back in later. The diameter should be about twice the diameter of the root ball but the same height as the root ball.
-- Take out the plant from its container, and gently work you hand over the root ball to stimulate the roots. For trees and shrubs, remove any wires, burlap, etc. from the root ball after taking your plant out of the container.
-- Place the plant in the hole. Make sure it’s positioned at the correct soil line. It’s very important to place the roots at the proper level so that the plant’s roots aren’t exposed and the foliage of low-lying plants doesn’t get too wet. Some plants such as strawberries are subject to rot if their foliage is planted so that it remains wet.
-- Fill the hole about half full with the original soil.
-- Gently pack the soil to remove any trapped air.
-- Give the plant a good drink.
-- Top off the hole with soil, pack it again, and water one more time.
-- You can build up a small berm of soil in the shape of a circle around the hole so that your watering is more effective.
-- Cover the base of the plant with a good mulch. You can use recycled garden materials such as leaves, bark, nut shells, hay, grass clippings, etc. See here for information on mulching.
-- After planting, follow the watering instructions appropriate to your plant. Keep your plants well watered for the first year until they establish a good root system.

Cameron Highlands - A place where one can find lots of cheap flowers and cactus. It is also a cool place where city folks come to relax and enjoy the beauty of nature.
I went to Cameron Highlands with a group of my friends. I have not been there for a while, and was looking forward very much to the trip. We visited lots of gardens where we saw so many beautiful plants. I had a fun time capturing the different types of flowers and I want to share some of the photos with you. How I wish I know the names of the flowers which I had ...

The Flower

Middle of the city,

between towering buildings,

on a back alley where no light reaches and hardly anyone passes,

there it was,

one little flower.

No one ever noticed but the flower was trying so hard,

hoping to be seen.

But hardly anyone walked by and ones who did never even noticed it was there.

When the little flower was almost ready to give up,

one man walked by and was so moved by the flower in such an unfitted place.

The little flower was so excited and encouraged

that she kept flowering

hoping to be looked at by someone again but no one else did…

She could not flower any longer and finally died

after being seen by only one person.

But the little flower died much happier than those at flower shops or flower gardens because, more than any other flowers, she found the happiness of having someone appreciate you