“Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul”
That was said by Luther Burbank. An American botanist and horticultist that dedicated his life and career to his passion, Flowers. He believed that flowers were way more than just colorful pieces of nature used to embelish gardens and front porches. And i think that might be the most truthful quotes out there…
The thing is… if you had asked me a week ago what i think of flowers, i wouldn't have thought long about it and i would have probably answered “ i love flowers, they are beautiful” I definitely wouldn't have made a big deal out of it. But that would have been an old me, because just two days ago i experienced a quite fascinating afternoon and it perhaps changed forever the way i see flowers.
Just to give you a proper context;
Two days ago i had an article to finish writing but i was hit by the blank page syndrome ( equally known as writer’s block, that's when you just can't lay anything on paper because of too many ideas buzzing in your heard or more often due to the complete lack thereof ). I needed to get a walk to change my mind and overcome the block.
I live in a small town in Germany and its so small i had already almost seen every corner of that town. I needed something fresh to get my inspiration back on track, so i jumped on the bus and went to town nearby that is a little bigger and more populated so it was perfect. I got off the bus at the town's entry so i could walk and see around.
I had barely been walking for 10 minutes that it appeared to me that almost every single house had a garden or a porch with beautiful flowers. I reacted like it was my first time seeing flowers. But for my defence, they almost looked like they were telling stories with their colors. I swiftly took my phone of my pocket and started freezing their beauty in time.
I couldn't stop admiring. Thinking back about it i'm sure the people walking nearby were certainly asking themselves why i was taking pictures of every flower in the town. I photographed about 100 flowers that day.
Variety has never been more present. From Roses to simple sun flowers and everything in between.
I am obviously not a botanist so i will not claim i know the name of every flower i took the picture of that day. But for me the real show stoppers were the range of colors. Take a look for yourself;
About halfway in my photographing spree, i noticed a lady watering her flowers. I was still asking myself why almost everyone in this town seemed to love flowers so much so i decided to go and ask her.
I introduced myself and showed her the hundreds of pictures i had already taken (not one by one, lol ). I equally shared my interest into knowing why flowers seemed to be to beloved here.
Her answer was quite unexpected. She simply didn't know. But what she said after that is the reason i'm writing this article. She didn't know why the whole town seemed to love flowers so mucht, but she knew why she did. She had this beautiful bush of roses that distinguished itself so uniquely from the others that you couldn't help but notice it immediately. She said that her 23-years old daughter currently studied Cardiology abroad and came back home just once a year. She wanted her daughter to always feel welcomed home no matter what, so she got this bush of beautiful red roses plantes just infront of the house. In this way, even from afar her daughter will already see her home and start feeling its comfort without even being in yet. She continued by drawing a heart-warming comparison. She said thf color of the roses had to be red. Because her and her daughter are forever linked not just by love but equally by blood, so she wanted the color of the roses to reflect this link between them.
Below is the bush we just discussed;
It almost moved me to tears. I thanked her turned away. My inspiration was back, but not for the same topic anymore.
I started thinking about the conversation i had just had. I never realised how often i dismissed flowers as just being pretty plants, when they are actuelly way more.
They are a language. We have all experienced receiving or buying flowers for someone for an occasion. We obviously do that because the flowers themselves are pretty but not only. Handing a flower bouquet to someone doesn't need word to be understood as love.
So perhaps every flower out there, no matter how big…
or how small…
it is, is just trying to communcate something…
See you next time!