Do you have a favourite flower?

I LOVE flowers. One of the reasons why I am such a fan of the TV show ”Midsomer Murders”, is because you get to view not only the most beautiful houses, England has to offer, but the most amazing gardens. You have to be quick, to spot them, but it gives me a high, to see them!

When I visited Kent, two years ago, Sissinghurst, was first on the agenda. As was Churchill’s Chartwell. The gardens are to die for.  I honestly would not mind going on a gardens of England tour, if there was such a thing. (There probably is!) BUT I am no gardener myself. It is just a fact I have to accept. The green fingers are totally missing.

In 2001, we moved to a house of our own, and I had bought loads of garden magazines and drawn planting maps, in preparation. When spring arrived, I went shopping for seeds and ready grown plants, while my husband had to create flower beds. Sadly, our soil is of the worse kind. Full of building material which makes it hard to work with. Most of the plants I planted, did not survive at all. Nor did the plants friends gave us. So, my garden is a sad excuse. It does not look at all, the way I would have loved for it to look. But this does not mean, that I do not love flowers and appreciate them wherever I go.

Today’s prompt on Cafe Analog, is just the word flower. I have interpreted it as, what is my favourite flower. But do I have only one favourite? If I was put on the spot, I would say the rose. I know. Boring. Is that not everyone’s favourite? Well, perhaps there is a reason why so many people love roses?

Yesterday, I talked of my parents, who basically could not agree on anything. The same went as far as what to plant in their garden, in 1974, when we moved to a house of our own. My dad wanted to plant his favourite flower. The RED rose. But my mum, hated red roses. She insisted on PINK ones. How did they settle this disagreement? Well, my dad, who was the one usually deciding things, planted his red roses in prominent places. And my mum got a corner where she could put hers. I loved my parents, but the roses they planted were not my favourites and never will be. Both of them loved the kind of roses you will find at the florist’s. The ones that are pretty for a couple of days and then dies. And most of all, which do not smell a thing.

In an episode of ”Poirot”, this beautiful  heiress Elinor, is accused of murder, because the deceased was a girl (Kelly Reilly), who had stolen Elinor’s fiancée. For some reason the topic of roses comes up in Poirot’s interview with the accused. Elinor tells Poirot that her favourite is the passionate red roses, but that her fiancée always loved the colourless white roses the most. And every time I see that episode (and yes, I love Poirot, so I watch them over and over), I always think ”A man of my choice! What is wrong with white roses?”. Of course, he was a swine who cheated on his fiancée, but… And her argument was that there was something wrong with his emotional life. All the same:

My favourite flowers are white roses. Just like Vita Sackville West! Sadly, her white roses had already bloomed, when I finally got to visit Sissinghurst. Maybe I love them so much, because they mean true love? But there is something so clean and ethereal with them as well. And the ones I have in my garden, which actually thrive, believe it or not, smell just divine.

Madame Plantier, was married to the gardener at Malmaison. A place I have always dreamed of visiting when the roses are in bloom. This is where Napoleon’s wife Josephine, created a sanctuary, for her emperor husband. Well, why does one say that? I doubt she was out in the garden and dug or cut back the dead roses. It was her gardener of course, who created the garden and her interior decorators, doing up the indoors. All the same, a rose I love for the smell. Walking by the now gigantic bush, to the front door, make us rub against the flowers and we get totally encompassed with the smell.

But, I actually do not mind baby pink roses either. The ones who lean towards white that is. The same year that I planted Madame Plantier, I also planted Maiden’s Blush. Another rose with an amazing smell. If I had the room, and was guaranteed that the roses would survive, I would make more flower beds and plant more old-fashioned roses. These two are rather open ones, but the roses I love the very most, are the ones that look like cups. They speak to my inner soul. But when I was planting my garden, and researched roses, I read in horror, how some of the roses I was attracted to, needed help every morning, to open up. Otherwise they would start rotting from the inside.

Imagine a mother of four children, the youngest only a couple of months and the others three, six and eleven, standing every morning trying to open up every single one of her roses, instead of fixing the children breakfast or mediate in their ”fights”. Sadly, I had to give up the thoughts of such roses, since they seemed to demand more work, than I was going to be able to do.

On my wish list, I have always had this particular rose: Glamis Castle. I have never seen it alive, nor then smelled it. But the beauty! Imagine a garden full of these kind of roses! My beloved cup roses.

My goal is to at least learn how to draw these roses, so I can have them on paper. And maybe one day, I can find a kind, which can open itself?

A lot of talk about roses. But the fact is, that I am not the kind of person, who can not see beauty in many things. I actually find tulips very attractive as well. Even if their blooming time is when I do not really want to be outdoors. And in southern Sweden, the blooming time can be over in a day, because of all the wind and storms. I have had my sad tulips come up and the next morning, only the stems remaining, all the petals scattered over the lawn. What tulips did I plant in my garden? BLACK ones! I love the black tulips with a passion. They have a rugged beauty to them, which is difficult to resist, and the colour, is not really black, but a deep, deep, deep burgundy or purple.

The flower, which I dreamed of planting in my garden, was Foxglove. But with small children, and some of them with NPF problems,  I did not dare to even try to plant a poisonous flower. What they are told, often goes in one ear and out the other. Now when the children are a little bit older, I might try, since foxglove do look lovely together with roses.

Another flower I have not dared to plant, since I suspected it would die, being the kind which demand a lot, is the Peony. Once  again I am drawn  to the cup-shaped type of flower. It’s similarities  with  the  rose  is amazing.

On my list of favourite flowers, I also need to add some perhaps less sophisticated ones. Flowers which speaks to the senses in another way, than the very beautiful ones. Well, it is hard to say that any flower is ugly. Is it not? I mean look at the lilac for example. To look at all the little intricate flowers making up the big clusters we see on the bushes, puts me in awe. And the smell almost makes me dizzy. Even the much hated dandelions, have their own beauty.

But there are two flowers, which are rather plain, and still stir up lots of emotions in me. The first one is Gerbera. It looks like a big Daisy. And the first time I saw that flower, was in my twenties. We had sister missionaries over for dinner and as they rang the door bell, they handed me a single Gerbera. And for some reason, it was such a sweet gesture and the flower just looked so happy, that I felt in a good mood every time I looked at it. Every time they came for dinner, they brought me a new Gerbera. Always in a different colour. My favourite one probably being the red one. But when my oldest son graduated from school, I bought him a lovely bouquet with pink gerberas, to match his pink graduation tie. And they were soooooo lovely.

The other one of the simple flowers I love, is the Poppy. It makes me so happy when summer has arrived to our part of the country and the wheat, corn, rye and barley fields have poppies scattered all over them. It feels like a symbol of my province and makes me so happy to see it and for getting to live exactly here. No doubt, they grow in other provinces as well, but this is Skåne for you. On the other hand, when I visited Belgium, it meant a lot to see the poppy fields, for other reasons. In southern Sweden they symbolize life, in Belgium death and remembrance. And I will never forget, visiting the Tower, the year they started to put all the ceramic poppies in the moat. It was powerful and the poppy took on another meaning entirely.

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I realize that I have many favourites actually, but most of all, that I love flowers. Many take them for granted. But when your garden has foul soil, you realize that they are a gift. Not all will grow in it. But the ones who do, are much appreciated.