Past Newsletters
Vol 3 No 5
Mother Nature's Mayflowers 
In celebration of the month of May, we are listening to the call of Mother Nature and sending you a bouquet of her most favored progeny- the rose and two wildflowers - a bundle of natural beauty! Your flower arrangement is filled with the earthy Purple Canterbury Bells and Geraldton Wax wildflowers which engage harmoniously with the velvety softness of the Creme Virginia rose.
Adding the perfect balance between the two styles of offspring is the Lemon Leaf green that showcases nature's finest like a mother displaying her newborn. Speaking of moms, don't forget to bring the joy of spring blooms to the woman who epitomizes bountiful creation - Chere Mere. It's a documented fact that giving your mother Endless Flowers of the Month Club will bring a happy glow to her face every month - a glow not unlike the one she had the day you arrived. In the spirit of this special season, we hope you enjoy your bouquet. And Happy Mother's Day to you (some of us have kittens) and yours!
Cream Virginia Rose
The Virginia rose is one of the most beautiful roses that exists in the world today. Grown in Ecuador, this hybrid has a subtle fragrance that enhances its stunning visual impact. A favorite choice for brides-to-be, the creamy white ivory blooms and velvet petals give a luxurious and milky rich feel to any bouquet lucky enough to include them.
The high-centered blooms on extremely long sturdy stems also help to give them an outstanding vase life. Virginia roses have two stages of maturity. After about 7-10 days in the vase, the flowers open fully and take on an even creamier color. In fact, florists and wedding stylists often wait until the Virginia has reached this secondary maturity before arranging them for brides. One of the most popular of the modern breeds today, these charming roses are exquisite; not only for their blossom, but for the way they surround any bouquet with their heavenly scent.
Purple Canterbury Bells
A classic cottage garden plant, this biennial bellflower has large showy blooms infused with a stunning purple hue. There are varieties sold now that claim they can be grown as an annual, but typically they are grown as a biennial. The Campanula tribe, to which these universally popular flowers belong, has its main headquarters in the Mediterranean region. There are at least two hundred and fifty different species in it, plus a great number of varieties which differ endlessly in size and conformation.
Their big blossoms, one to each short stem, are strikingly bell-like in form, although they face upward rather than down. Few flowers are more aptly named than Canterbury Bells - their edges are rolled softly outward, and a little imagination can easily liken the long central pistil to a bell's clapper. Many a New England hillside is literally blue with Canterbury Bells in mid-spring, for this flower is unbelievably prolific when it finds a home entirely to its liking. No wonder poets have sung its praises from time immemorial.
A Colorful History
Since the time when the Egyptians reportedly filled Cleopatra's room knee-deep with rose petals as she awaited Marc Antony's arrival, the significance and meaning of the rose has ranged from love to political allegiance. The art of the early civilizations of Persia and Babylon often depicted the damask rose, and Greek and Roman mythology associated the rose with Aphrodite and Venus, the goddesses of beauty and love.
Even early Christianity depicted the Virgin Mary with a white rose. During the 15th century, the English families of York and Tudor touted their lineage through the display of either a red or white rose in the civil conflict known as the War of the Roses.
Empress Josephine, Napoleon's wife, was a famous rose collector. Early 19th century engravings of her rose varieties and her development of the gardens at Chateau Malmaison are, in large measure, responsible for the popularity of the "modern" cultivation of roses. So prized were her roses that, during the French Revolution, a London nurseryman was permitted behind French battle lines solely to care for her flowers.
The Victorian fascination with horticulture gave the hobby of rose growing additional confirmation and endorsement at the end of the 19th century. Although the peril of young Victorian ladies pricking their fingers on the bushes' thorns was great, many young women still took the risk for the sake of the flower's great elegance, beauty and fragrance.
In addition to the simple luxury of having fresh flowers around their country homes, these genteel ladies also used roses as a means of communication. For example, when a gentleman presented a woman with a red rose, the message was one of love. If the lady then replied with a white rose, her response meant that she was too young for courtship. She wasn't interested if she replied with a single rose leaf. If the rose was yellow, she felt the young man too fickle. Her feelings toward the gentleman were that of mutual admiration only, she responded with a red rose. Of course red roses have taken on a very different meaning in our culture!
The Geraldton Wax, Australia's Most Famous Wildflower 
Although the adaptable Waxflower is broadly used as a cut flower in Australia and overseas, it's a recent arrival in our world of cut flowers. Each one of the small waxy petals includes many gorgeous colors and hues. Because of the flowers' intricate construction, dusky centers, and the various ways the blossoms look as they very slowly open, each cluster has its own personality. Most varietals of Geraldton Waxflowers will last for well over a week.
The needle-like leaves (they look similar to rosemary) are ever so softly scented… just bend a few to release the delicate bouquet. Wax Flowers can be used to complement the main attraction in an arrangement, or simply enjoyed on their own. The colors of the varietals vary from pure white and pale pink, variegated white and pink, through to dark purple. The flowers are cut from a medium to large shrub, typically 6 to 9 feet high. They appear in late winter and may last well into summer.
Lemon Leaf
Whether you call it Lemon Leaf or Salal, so much in the Pacific Northwest depends on this leafy plant, yet few people ever notice its prevalence. This versatile evergreen with spoon shaped leaves, flowers in late May or early June, and produces berries in autumn. Native peoples have feasted upon its berries for centuries, elk and deer continue to thrive on its leaves, and today, whole families can purchase houses and cars from the wages earned gathering the foliage for florists.
A member of the Ericaceae family, Lemon Leaf (also known as Salal) is related to wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) and creeping snowberry (Gaultheria hispidula). It grows as shrubs, two to three feet height in full sun, but five to ten feet in shade. Salal loves moist forests throughout the northern coastal mountain ranges - from southern California to northern British Columbia. It grows well in acidic soil, such as a redwood forest, and once it takes hold, it sets roots deeply into the soil and thrives.
The shrub often grows in clumps. As you can see, the leaves are alternate, evergreen, and the leaf margins are "saw-toothed." The flowers are tiny, candy-pink, urn-shaped flowers that hang along reddish or salmon-colored racemes. They turn paler, almost white as they age. The fruit is a dark purple berry, and it tastes somewhat like a blue berry. Historically, the leaves were eaten raw to suppress hunger, heartburn, or diarrhea. The reddish-blue to blackish berries may be eaten raw, or cooked. Salal berry jam and wines are quite popular. In recent years, this plant has become a staple of florist shops across North America because its glossy dark green, leathery leaves go so well with florist bouquets.
Arrangement Tips
We recommend using a taller vase (10-12 inches) with a 3-5 inch opening for this month's arrangement, or a smaller bubble vase… both arrangements are equally stunning. You might consider gathering your Canterberry Bells and Lemon leaf first, and then place your Virginia roses and Wax flowers in and around them, which will accent both the roses and Canterberry Bells nicely.
This is an especially nifty bouquet since your Virginia roses will experience a secondary maturity after about 7-10 days in the vase. Florists and wedding stylists tend to wait until the flower has reached this secondary maturity since the flowers open fully and take on an even creamier color. After your Canterberry Bells fade, we'd suggest cutting back the roses another 5-6 inches and placing them in a bubble bowl or other shorter vase with your wax flowers and enjoy a second bouquet!
The Beauty of the Essential Wildflower
Wildflowers are one of Mother Nature's many ways of making life on Earth pleasing and inhabitable. Essential parts of life are sustained and enhanced through the use of this aesthetic plant life, including mental and spiritual ministering, as well as medicinal healing.
In the kitchen, all of our culinary vegetables and herbs are wild flowers or their descendants - mint, chives, thyme etc. Most of our medicines come from plants or are based upon plant substances as well. Wildflowers provide cures and much needed relief from all sorts of ailments, including: pain (aspirin from the willow, vitamin C from rosehips), wounds and broken bones (comfrey) and stress and insomnia (valerian). Industry utilizes wild flowers for things such as dyes for clothing, ale brewing, and paper and cosmetics manufacturing.
All this, on top of the fact that wildflowers, all by themselves, can create landscapes so fantastic they stop traffic or urge an artist to render their beauty in oil paint. No wonder people are wild about wildflowers. But how much does the common person really know about these worldly wonders? Take the following quiz and see how schooled you are in this life sustaining commodity. You may find yourself taking time out to smell the wildflowers next time you cut a highway swathe through a patch of them.
Wildflower Quiz
Check your knowledge of wildflowers and whether you know the difference between a wildflower and a weed!
1. Which state did early Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon name, and what does the word mean?
2. What protective biological adaptations have evolved in many alpine wildflowers?
3. Which park might be fittingly named "The Wildflower National Park?"
4. This particular wildflower may have been used for more ailments than any other plant in the United States.
5. The Appalachians are home to some 40 different wildflowers that are atypical to these ancient mountains. Where in the world are their closest plant relatives?
6. Which First Lady founded the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982 with the purpose "to educate people about the environmental necessity, economic value and natural beauty of native plants?"
7. The state of Texas leads the nation in roadside acreage dedicated to wildflowers, in part because of the bountiful native bluebonnets. Which state comes in second?
8. What is the optimum way of managing native prairies and the broadleaf flowers and grasses for which they are noted?
9. Which blossom is the state flower of Arizona?
10. There is a presidential memorandum mandating that native plants be used to landscape federal facilities and federally funded projects. True or false?
Answers
1. Florida; Land of Flowers.
2. Felt-like coatings; dense, communal growth; silver foliage; compactness; and reproductive cycles that begin before snowmelt.
3. The Great Smoky Mountains-with almost 1,500 native flowering plants. This is more than any other national park in North America. So abundant are the springtime blooms, that an annual wildflower pilgrimage was begun 50 years ago, the first of its kind in the country. The three-day program features photographic tours, nature walks and driving.
4. Purple coneflower or Echinacea. It was used for stings and snakebites by the Plains Indians, as well as a treatment for toothache, headache and enlarged glands. Its beneficial properties include antibiotic effects.
5. Asia.
6. Lady Bird Johnson. The 42-acre Austin-based native-plant botanical garden now bares her name and displays more than 500 Central Texas species. Over 100,000 people visit the institution annually, and its plant experts fulfill more than 15,000 information requests per year. www.wildflower.org.
7. North Carolina. In 1985, the state's department of transportation began seeding wildflowers as part of its highway beautification program. This was one of the earliest such programs in the country. More than 25,000 pounds of seed are used yearly to cover 3,000 acres of beds with 22 varieties of wildflowers.
8. By burning the acreage every three years or so. While natural prairies require fire for maintenance, an annual mowing in the case of meadow gardens is an alternative that works as effectively.
9. The saguaro, whose United States range is restricted to portions of California and Arizona. First blooms appear on half-century-old plants. Individual flowers last only 24 hours and if fertilized will become edible fruit.
10. True. Where feasible, these grounds are to include regionally native plants, thus protecting an area's natural heritage and preserving wildlife habitat. Additionally, landscaping practices are to incorporate water conservation and pollution-prevention techniques.
