How Words became Flowers

even spiky ones

I write this sitting on the garden bench (not quite as intriguing a position as the kitchen sink), a spot just becoming more appealing as we crawl out of winter. Watching this garden change, thoughts landing, sow beans, scatter cornflowers, check for aphids. It’s a living, breathing, ever-shifting thing, a garden. At times it resembles a predictable ebb and flow, at others a wild and growing beast, following a script you cannot read and skip ahead, a film you cannot replay. It offers only immersion in its present.

That script reads like a page-turner in spring, the potential of each handful of warming earth and seeds rich and fragrant, garden dreams suddenly tangible with each morning’s fresh growth. By summer you’re revelling in a frothy romance, with sun-warmed vases of burgeoning colour and fruit. Autumnal light has you soaking in the distilled moments of an art nouveau, and by winter you’ve tucked into a reflective journal of all that was, and will be again, the authenticity of nature’s rhythm that played out over the year.

Gardens are artworks that escape the control of their maker."—Abderrazak Benchaâbane

I’ve always loved that quote, the romanticizing of grass growing into the beds, self sown sweet peas that establish themselves in the most inconvenient of spots, the Thunbergia arch that sank to child’s height under the weight of its tendrils and leaves.

I’d add that these artworks include stories, escaping control of their writers. From the soil, buds open forming unexpected words. Hope. Reverence. Truth. Flowers picked and pressed into someone’s arms become strings of words, unplanned conversations. Wishing I could heal this for you.

This is not a new thought, Victorian lovers and friends used the language of flowers, bouquets chosen to convey a message. Flowers became words when they were picked, collected and changed hands. Alyssum: Worth beyond beauty. Camellia: My destiny is in your hands. Clove: I have loved you and you have not known it.

In reverse, could words become flowers? Even unwelcome words? I imagine words inked onto paper, the kind that is handmade, imperfect, textured. Fresh liquid letters leaking along the random creases, forming wonky stems, spindly roots, fragile flowers.

Anxiety Disorder. Attention Deficit. Autism Spectrum. Pathological Demand Avoidance. With each heavy word a fragrant stem is cut and gathered. Sweet Pea. Iceland Poppy. Bearded Iris. With each spiky word a soft bloom placed into the pin frog. Freesia. Feverfew. Ranunculus.

Words are placed into a vase, where they may be safely turned and considered, all their sides and edges observed. Fingertips to fragile petals. How is it you are here, how is it I have not collapsed under your weight? How is it you are beautiful still? This is a developing story.

The flowers left in the garden form seed, which I will collect and grow new words from.

a collection

or gathering

of flowers

Anthology: a collection of selected literary pieces or passages or works of art or music. From the Greek anthos "a flower" + logia "collection, collecting"

(A collection of bearded irises (Annie’s Song, Paprika Fono’s), feverfew, sweet peas (Multiflora and Piggy Sue), iceland poppies (Champagne Bubbles), freesias, ranunculus, daffodils (Ice Folly), bunny tails and various grasses)

For some growing and picking tips on these flowers, read on.

Competitive sweet peas. Even if I’m on the ball and get to planting sweet peas as early as the end of February, I often find a self sown vine somewhere unexpected, getting a sneaky head start. Sweet peas prefer consistently damp soil, so when I do get to choose where they’ll grow, I’ll put them in a bed that suits. They have surprisingly deep roots, so dig deep and add manure, in the area below where you will plant them. Pick these when the bud is just opening.

Daffodils perennialize, something well worth celebrating. Just as well, as they treat you to one flower a season, unless you’re very lucky. They prefer dry summers, so I have planted mine at the highest point of my slopey garden, where the soil drains best, almost under the canopy of the trees, under a summer rain shadow. For best vase life pick these at “goose-neck” stage - when the bud has bowed with its weight just before opening.

I’ve planted fluffy-leaved feverfew among them to disguise the yellowing leaves after the flowers have passed.

Freesias will come up each year, leave them in the soil after they have finished flowering. They like some shade which is great as you don’t need to stress about what you plant around them. Pick when 2 or more buds on the flower stem are open, to give it a chance to open fully.

Bearded Irises and Iceland poppies cope well with sandier soil, and won’t thank you for too much water. I’ve planted my Irises all over, but the ones under the conifer trees, where it is drier and in afternoon shade, are doing the best. I did add a load of mushroom compost before planting them as they don’t like competing for root space. Pick the whole long stem when the bud is showing colour like a pencil tip, each flower only lasts 3 days, but then next will open up and the next and the next and if you use them in arrangements your design will shift and change in surprising ways.

What can I say about Iceland poppies germination… well. Last year I grew a mini field. This year I late-panic bought seedlings. You scatter them on the surface of the soil, they need light to germinate, but they mustn’t dry out, but they don’t like being wet. Sometimes I have luck and they germinate under the shadow of the drip irrigation pipe, or under the leaves of neighbouring plants. Sometimes I don’t. I’ll still be collecting every poppy pod in eternal hope. Pick when the bud is just cracking open and you get a peek at the coloured petals inside, dip the end into boiling water for 10 seconds, then you’ll get to admire it for days and days.