Floral Almanac
Disclaimer- I wrote this one back in freshman year of university and I haven’t gone back and edited it yet. Read at your own risk.
Everyone you know is a self-proclaimed florist. For whatever reason, we all think deep down that we’re flower whisperers. I don’t know, I’ve just always been ~particularly~ drawn to life’s little things. How arrogant! Floral arrangement is much more than slapping a daisy with a hydrangea— (or so I think, I’ve never really looked it up.) Anyway. Despite lacking the floral credentials to officially identify as a florist, I come speaking on behalf of the petaled beauties themselves. I believe that flowers have extreme personalities as prominent and personable as humans. To arrange flowers based off how they look seems rather shallow once you realize how sophisticated the helpless things really are. So, here is a complete (politically accurate) floral almanac that’ll give you just about everything you need to know when it comes to flowers and caring for their flora fancies.
LILAC
Let’s start off with the backbone of the flower province. The flower that’s really doing the heavy lifting when it comes to aesthetics, scent, fragility, history, and morals. Lilacs are the girls (or boys, it’s 2022, come on now,) who singlehandedly uphold the fragments of our nation’s innocence. Relics of old east coast homesteads, lilacs longevity and academic nature give them subtle validity other flowers could only yearn for. They are old money. They are a tennis match on a June morning. They are strawberry lemonade from Nordstrom. This is not to say their fragile appearance means they are high maintenance. Established lilac bushes can be 100+ years old, casually dismissing century bounds. Lilac bushes have tea with the Queen in their free afternoons. They wear pearls to the opera. They are educated and cautious but not judgmental. Lilacs are the most precious element on earth. If you are ever gifted lilacs, the giver has just earned themselves a fast-pass to heaven. But, as everything in the world seems to have, Lilacs have their appropriate downsides. They can be over-thinkers. They can spiral. As such, some opt to take fluoxetine. They need their down time, because life is exhausting. They nap for long periods of time. If you see a lilac looking stressed or sad, just aid from afar. They would like some alone time.
POPULAR LILACS: Kate Middleton, Anne Frank, Abraham Lincoln
PEICE: 2 Arabesques, L. 66: No.1 in E Major
COMMON POPPY (RED)
The common red poppy already has distinct bittersweet connotations of remembrance and death stemming from the first world war. I should like to expand on this reputation in highlighting the specifics of this polite little bloom. Poppies, as alluded to by the syntax of their name, seem childlike. They’re boyish and absurd, grateful and small. They love to make hats out of newspapers and swords out of finished wrapping paper rolls. What they lack in formal education they make up for in sincerity. Please don’t insult them. They have wonderful self-esteem, but an even better memory. Whatever you say will stick with them for better or for worse. Wherever you’re from, did you have veterans ringing a little bell on Armistice Day outside of grocery stores giving out little synthetic poppies in exchange for a donation? They did in Kirkland, and I loved it. Poppies are terribly young and terribly old at the same time. Their innocence, however, can be overshadowed by death’s dark robes that seems to eventually encapsulate all beauty. They are heartbreaking, but also one of the prominent reasons to live in the first place. Please be authentic with poppies, and jest about an appropriate amount. Poppies love to laugh, but they don’t live long so if you catch them crying in the night-time, offer to watch Roman Holiday and fall asleep on the couch with sorbet in chilled glasses. They’ll fall asleep soundly.
POPULAR POPPIES: Amelia Earhart, Rudy from The Book Thief, Thomasin McKenzie, Tom Hanks
SONG: “Everybody’s Gotta Live” By Love
WHITE ROSE
Tread carefully when dealing with a white rose. They’re beautiful and they know it. White roses are often magnificently accomplished, and proud of it. They are not particularly arrogant, mind you, but they also aren’t about to sacrifice their hard work for your comfort. As such, they can often be intimidating. If you give it a google, you will find white roses traditionally resemble purity. In Greek mythology, white roses are tied to Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. It therefore comes as no surprise that white roses have an ample aptitude to be vain, witty, cunning, and self-centered. White roses will watch you spill coffee on your shirt at 7am on the bus ride to work and hold eye contact. Their eyes will hold disappointment but encouragement. You will want to look away, but where? Nobody else would be capable of giving you as much information through two crystal optics as the veela across the aisle. White roses themselves only ever drink water or champagne. And even if they’re not rich, they’re extremely wealthy. Perhaps the wealthiest flower of all. The price of their upkeep is not one to be paid by anyone less than the best. White roses should like to be put on display alone. Never in a bouquet. Never. If you cannot obtain a thin crystal glass from 1934 embroidered with laced gold and the delicacy of an eyelash, please do not bother at all. It would be disrespectful. The poor darling was born alone and will die alone in a magnificent, translucent shower of wealth and class. You’ll wonder what they did to encapsulate the lucent grace that they wore like a silk slip at midnight in Morocco. But it’s no bother wondering, because white roses are very rare. I’ve never met one, you probably haven’t either. And if you ever do meet one, please don’t pester them. Steal a glance if you must but mind your own business. You’ll go insane trying to unravel theirs.
POPULAR WHITE ROSES: Anya Taylor-Joy, Queen Victoria, Vincent Cassel
SONG: Thais: Meditation
TULIP
Tulips are the understated pockets of pleasure of which the world, quite frankly, does not deserve. As the national flower of both Turkey and Holland, the tulip is the bright thing next door who plays piano all day long. You don’t mind however, because they play imperfectly wonderful. Tulips are easy to please. Toss them anywhere. Like the white rose, tulips know their worth, but aren’t as concerned with it. They have the athletic ability of Jesse Owens, the humor of Jerry Seinfeld, and the cleverness of Mary Shelley. Tulips go barefoot. Most have enough freckles to give them skin cancer by the age 43. Tip for all the sinners in the crowd, white tulips mean “I’m sorry.” So slap a bouquet of white bulbs at your friends’ feet the next time you crash and burn. And despite their simplicity, tulips are not inexpensive. From 1634 to 1637, they were so popular historians have dubbed it the “tulip mania.” Tulips will forget your birthday over their dead body. They are quite the spectacle. But please don’t assume they were planted this way. Tulips hate to be taken advantage of—or worse, forgotten about. Tulip caretakers must be worthy, or else the flowers themselves will uproot, pack their Turkish and Dutch bags, and catch the very next train as far away from you as possible. Tulips never swear, but they will use poetry to break your sad frame to a puddle of indecent filth if you cross them. So basically the girls who girl, girl, but the girls who girln’t, gorn’t.
POPULAR TULIPS: Marion Ravenwood from Indiana Jones, Saorise Ronan, Annie Reed from Sleepless in Seattle,
SONG:
ORCHIDS
Orchids are the scum of the earth. They mask their fruitless contributions to society by being irreverently overpriced whilst being ugly in the act. Orchids put others down for their own gain. You’ll spot them laughing and gawking in hotel lobbies and bougie bathrooms. Orchids hate everyone but themselves. The purple ones especially. If you find yourself being seduced by an orchid, you have lost. They want nothing but your money and time. They leech off your precious assets before up and dying—in effect making you feel guilty. Orchids are never grateful. They entirely lack sympathy and empathy. Despite the fact they’re usually trust fund babies, orchids will “accidentally” forget their wallet when you’re at a Dairy Queen on a Thursday afternoon. Don’t expect to be paid back. Orchids will also never shut up. They assume you want to listen to whatever it is they have to say. Why? Because most people do. It is assumed that orchids are extravagant and expensive, and we must therefore like them. This is shit. Be honest, nobody actually likes orchids. Nobody has ever been walking in a field of flowers and sought out the stuck up stems. I think orchids secretly have low self-esteem, one of the few things money can’t buy.
POPULAR ORCHIDS: That fat middle-age white man from church who lets the congregation know (from the pulpit) why short skirts mean a girl is inherently “asking for it.”
SONG: I will not associate any song with an orchid.