I remember the first time I had heard about the Victorian language of flowers. I was 18, working in a small shop in downtown Chicago. In that flower shop we had more foreign tourists than regular local customers. It was an older German businessman who introduced me to the concept, we exchanged a few words in German before speaking in English about his journey in the states. Throughout his business travels of 25 years he always made a point to stop into different flower shops. In each one he would arrange a unique bouquet of flowers to be sent to his wife from wherever he was; he explained this was a very old tradition in European florists. In that bouquet he hand picked each flower to create a message she would recognize. On that day he sent the message of love, longing and beauty; a perfect bouquet of a rose, pink carnation and white calla lily. I thought it was simple, poetic and romantic. Left feeling dreamy and inspired, I went home that night spending hours discovering the history and meanings of flowers.
The language of flowers or floriography started in the 1700’s. It has roots in Chinese culture and was brought over to Europe by King Charles the 2nd after living in exile in Turkey(2). It quickly blossomed into a well loved tradition in Europe and encouraged young women to study botany where 400 dictionaries were produced during the 1800’s (4). It grew to be a common way to send messages that could not be made public. Eventually the language of flowers became less popular but still the sentiments has continued to grow and evolve over time. Most recently the language of flowers has been brought back into the mainstream media due to royal weddings. Both Princess Kate Middleton and Duchess Meghan Markle choose to have bouquets built around the language of flowers. As it re-enters more modern times, the flowers have become multi-meaning and it is recommended to consider all the meanings to best find the right flower for your message.
Below we have compiled a list of language of flowers sources! Our favorite at Boulder Gardens is Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s dictionary from her world famous book “ The Language of Flowers”, which is a beautiful novel that will be made into a movie expected out next year.
Check out these
(1) http://thelanguageofflowers.com/
(2) http://www.languageofflowers.com/
(3) https://www.almanac.com/content/flower-meanings-language-flowers
