Stopping To Smell The Roses

One of the most powerful ways to improve your home and life is by adding plants and flowers.

Feng Shui and Flowers

Beautiful plants and flowers lift the energy of your home, bringing beautiful healthy growing chi. And the most auspicious part of plants? Flowers. They are are the yang expression of a plant.

Flowering blooms aren’t just lovely to look at, they can promote love and are regarded as symbols of good fortune and bring auspicious energy. You can use them to brighten up your home by displaying them in vases in your home. A mixed bouquet brings bright, happy yang energy to the house. Think of flowers as the way a plant smiles – and those smiles create happy feelings for you, your family, and visitors to your home.

Bear in mind, though, that dried flowers are generally regarded as dead energy, making them unsuitable for lifting chi. Here are some more important guidelines on flower feng shui.

• Display flowers as an offering.

If you’d like to imbue fresh, spring-time or renewal energy for yourself or your home, place flowers in a vase according to the energy you wish to inspire. For healing energy, select white flowers, for love choose pink, and for wealth, display purple or gold flowers.

• Offer flowers to those in need.

When friends or family members are ill, offer them a bouquet of white flowers, such as magnolia or lilies. If friends or family are in need of more prosperity, offer a bulb flower, such as narcissus to inspire greater wealth. Golden-colored chrysanthemum and narcissus are always a good choice, too, for promoting wealth chi, particularly when moving into a new home, beginning a new undertaking, or at the beginning of the New Year. Pink hued flowers represent fond affection and happiness and are perfect for friends and creating loving ties.

• Singles should display peonies.

The Chinese have long held that peony flowers are the flower of romance and many a young Chinese woman displayed red peonies, the ultimate symbol of youthful love and romance. Singles who wish to marry should display a vase of peonies or a painting of the blossoms in the living room, where they represent seeking love versus in the bedroom where the flowers are a symbol of carnal love.

• The lotus is the flower of enlightenment.

As a symbol of purity, the lotus rises from the muddy waters to bloom, symbolizing rising above the worldly problems. Buddhas are often shown seated in a lotus and the Buddhist chant Om Mani Padme Hum literally means “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus.” As such, it’s highly regarded as a symbol of great good fortune and enlightenment. The flower represents unending success and ceaseless abundance. Display these in a vase or as a painting or figure to inspire your life and home.

• Orchids are the career flower.

Despite their reputation as fickle flowers, orchids are quite simple to raise and bring beautiful career chi to those who display them. Purple orchids bring opportunity and success and are regarded as the most beneficial color to display. In a living room, the orchid bestows family luck and harmony.

• Flowers to symbolize prosperity, success, and wealth.

Chrysanthemum seen so abundantly in floral shops and in fall gardens represents bumper harvests, abundant joy and a long, fruitful life. Other flowers that represent acquired wealth include bulb flowers such as narcissus, tulips, paperwhites, gladiolas, iris or lily.

• Flowering branches represent longevity, overcoming adversity.

Whether it’s a plum, cherry, or peach branch, flowering branches because they typically bloom in winter represent overcoming obstacles. These are wonderful reminders of succeeding after difficulties and of longevity.

• Flower cleansing baths purify and uplift.

To create essential yang chi and clear your mind and rejuvenate your body, simply bathe in a bathtub that has been sprinkled with the petals of at least five different flowers in the five colors of the five elements. There should be pink, yellow, white, blue, and green petals from flowers or herbs, like rosemary, in your bath. You may also wish to include Bach flower essential oils in your bathe to help create a beautiful aroma as well, or use fragrant flowers such as lavender, jasmine or gardenia to perfume your water. This uplifting ritual will help to infuse your body with beautiful yang energy and soothe your mind.

• Choose color combinations carefully.

Although beautiful, red flowers are not regarded as auspicious for giving to someone who is ill and should be avoided when visiting someone sick or giving at the beginning of a relationship as the color can be overpowering and “flame out” the romance. Red peonies symbolize passionate, amorous love and can reawaken a dormant sex life for a couple when displayed in the living room.

When giving flowers in a new relationship, opt for sentimental colors such as pink or yellow or a combination of these colors. Red and white flowers should never be put together, but a rainbow of colors is always a good color option as long as all colors are represented. Purple is regarded as auspicious and harbinger of prosperous times and success, as is gold. Purple, gold and white are especially harmonious and auspicious.

Have you ever gazed at a lush and beautiful floral arrangement and wished you knew how to pull one together? Now you can. We turned to a flower pro to give us her flower arranging tips, tricks, and styling shortcuts so you’ll never have to shell out money for a store-bought bouquet ever again.

Flower Arranging 101

1. Create a foundation with foliage. This is the framework for the arrangement. Build a pleasing, asymmetrical shape that leans on the lip of the vase and has a high point in back. Make sure it’s not too thick, so there’s room for the flowers.
2. Add large “face” flowers, cutting stems at different lengths so some blooms nestle low and others extend. The crisscrossed foliage stems in the vase work like webbing to hold flowers where you want them. Take your time, experimenting until it looks good.
3. Weave in wispy elements, like climbing flowering vines or ferns, in three strategic spots: up high on one side, down low (spilling out of the vase), and in the middle, as if they’ve pushed their way through a cluster of larger blooms.

Flower Arranging Tips and Tricks

• Use opaque vases instead of glass. They hide messy stems and quietly complement flowers rather than competing with them.
• Mimic the randomness of nature. Think asymmetry, odd numbers, and varied depth and height when arranging.
• Don’t be afraid to cut tall flowers very short.

Playing with scale can give even a solitary bloom a lot of impact: Imagine looking down into the face of a single sunflower in a low, round bud vase.

• Clip backyard plants to make arrangements more interesting.

Shrubbery or garden foliage, like forsythia, coleus, begonia leaves, and ivy, can add depth to a display. And don’t dismiss beautiful weeds, such as Queen Anne’s lace.

• Opt for slender-necked vessels if you’re unsure about your skills.

Vases with smaller mouths do the work for you—holding flowers artfully without letting them plop—so even the most basic display looks gorgeous.

The Only Vases You Really Need

• A tall, fluted column, slightly wider on top than on the bottom, holds supermarket bunches, bouquets from guests, and any long-stemmed roses that come your way. A height of about 10 inches works well.
• A small footed urn is perfect for a centerpiece. It’s low, so it won’t interfere with dinner conversation, and it offers a nice view from above. Six inches tall by eight wide makes a statement but isn’t hard to fill.
• A trio of bud vases in complementary shapes can work as a cluster centerpiece or be separated to showcase single gorgeous blooms. Choose one medium-height, one tall, and one squat, all with narrow mouths.

Think Outside The Box

There are a wide variety of items that make for wonderful flower holders and vases. Some of them allow for a small jar or vase to be placed inside, others are watertight enough to be used alone. I found a bunch of images that I think will give us some really great ideas:

Some of these ideas might require some expertise and more than a little thought, but they really got my creative juices going. What about you? See any that you’d like to try?

The Language of Flowers

The language of flowers, sometimes called florigraphy, was a Victorian-era means of communication in which various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken. This language was most commonly communicated through Tussie-Mussies, an art which has a following today.

I think it might be fun to make a flower arrangement with a message, here are some ideas. Much more can be found here: The Language of Flowers, and here:  Dictionary of the Language of Flowers

• Domestic (happiness) – Honeysuckle (Sent Monthly); Holly;
• Encouragement – Golden Rod;
• Excellence (unpretending excellence) – Camellia japonica;
• Family (family union) – Pink Verbena;
• Feeling (warmth of feeling) – Peppermint;
• Feelings (warm feelings) – Spearmint;
• Friendship (everlasting) – Arborvitae;
• Friendship (lasting) – Pear Blossom;
• Friendship (true) – Oak Leaf Geranium;
• Fruitfulness – Hollyhock; Orange Blossoms;
• Gay Life – Peony;
• Gentility – Pompom Rose;
• Gladness – Myrrh;
• Good Luck – Camellia; Mugwort;
• Good News – Guelder Rose (Snowball-tree);
• Good Wishes – Sweet Basil;
• Goodness – White Zinnia; Snowball;
• Grace – Yellow Jasmine; Pink Rose; Multiflora Rose; China Rose;
• Gratitude – Campanula; Canterbury Bells; Dark Pink Rose;
• Happiness – Dandelion; Mugwort; Rose (Red and yellow together);
• Happiness (domestic) – Honeysuckle (Sent Monthly); Holly;
• Happiness (return of happiness) – Lily of the Valley;
• Happiness (rural) – Tulip-tree;
• Happy (love) – Bridal Rose;
• Happy (marriage) – Peony;
• Heart (light heartedness) – Shamrock;
• Hope – Flowering Almond; Hawthorn; Iris (Fleur-de-Lis); Star of Bethlehem; Snowdrop;
• Hope (hope in adversity) – Pine (Spruce);
• Hope (hope in misery) – Milkweed;
• Joy – Rose (Red and Yellow together);
• Joy (joys to come) – Celandine;
• Joy (of life) – Light Pink Rose;
• Lasting (pleasure) – Everlasting Pea; Parsley;
• Life (gay) – Peony;
• Life (joy of ) – Light Pink Rose;
• Life (long life) – Peach Blossom
• Life (you’ve made my life complete) – Lily of the Valley;
• Light heartedness – Shamrock;
• Luck – Bells of Ireland;
• Luck (good luck) – Camellia; Mugwort;
• Marriage (happy) – Peony;
• Pleasure – Red Poppy;
• Pleasure (blissful) – Sweet Pea;
• Prosperity – Peony; Cattail; Wheat;
• Protection – Juniper; White Heather;
• Success – Yellow Poppy; Palm Leaves;
• Victory – Palm Leaves;
• Warm (feelings) – Spearmint;
• Warmth (warmth of feeling) – Peppermint;
• Warmth (warmth of sentiment) – Spearmint;
• Welcome – Mayflower;
• Wisdom – White Mulberry; Iris (Fleur-de-Lis);
• Wish (a wish) – Fox Glove;
• Wishes (good) – Sweet Basil;
• Wishes (wishes will come true) – White Heather;
• Worth – Mignonette; Evergreen (trailing woodland plants that stay green all year);
• Worth (worth beyond beauty) – Sweet Alyssum;

LOL… I couldn’t resist!

Sources:

• Real Simple
• Red Lotus Letter