Blog a la Cart

When I think of my mother, one of the first images that comes to mind is her coated with soil and earth, vibrantly patterned gardening gloves in hand, wild blonde hair perched atop her head in a loose and messy ponytail (a look you’d never witness on Allison, unless she was working in the garden) up to her elbows in lush flowers and plants. To this day, she spends hours upon hours out in her gardens during the warmer seasons, weeding and planting and prepping and clipping her floral babes. For a woman who hates to sweat, she has no qualms about truly getting her hands dirty in the name of gorgeous flower beds.

While I do not share her green thumb, I have a deep and lifelong appreciation for flowers thanks to this upbringing. While some people bemoan flowers as a frivolous, fleeting expense, I see the deep and meaningful beauty and joy that they can bring to a home. I understand the profound impact that they can have on the recepient of such a fragile, temporary gift. Fresh flowers make a home more welcoming, more beautiful, more cheerful. It’s an amazing transformation, really. Perhaps that’s why my mother was a member of no less than three garden clubs during my childhood.

In addition to her love of flowers, my mother is a total bibliophile. I remember listening to the hum and chatter of her book club late into the evenings each month growing up. Wine glasses clinking. Laughter hanging in the air. Food and books and friendship filling our hallways.

In my early 20s, I was home one summer visiting my parents, and was invited to participate in one of my mom’s book club’s monthly discussions. I remember sitting on our front porch in that circle of women who had gathered together for more than a decade over their love of the written word and friendly gossip, and I hoped that I could one day claim such a space, too.

I’ve been lucky that for the past five months, a group of women and I have started a monthly book club in our own little community. Much like my mother’s group, there’s the perfect mix of wine, and literature, and cheese, and laughter, and gossip, and friendship. It’s not only carved space into my daily life for reading, but it’s an excuse to come together with a group of women I admire and enjoy, and claim a few hours for myself during the otherwise compressed days of work and parenting.

This month we read The Language of Flowers, a quick and enjoyable read, though certainly not great literature or anything terribly profound. What I found most compelling about the book, in fact, was this concept of the language of flowers – an actual dictionary of flowers and their meaning from the Victorian era. As someone raised with the sense that flowers were their own source of communication, I loved taking that one step further and thinking about composing arrangements and bouquets infused with meaning for the recipient.

I decided to put this language to work and create a bouquet for our hostess of this month’s gathering. I was limited to flowers that were available and in season, but ultimately touched on this notion of friendship and warmth of feeling that is at the heart of our meetings. While also acknowledging the hostess’s own generosity and loveliness.

I am completely enamored with this concept, and plan to think about all future bouquets with this added level of meaning. And what interesting arrangements could arise from this language. Mint and oranges and freesia and carnations, a flower I would otherwise never use if not for its delightful sentiment, combine to make the perfect gift and message for a hostess.

Stay tuned for future bouquets and floral expressions. Victoria’s Dictionary of Flowers here.