A Garden's Storybook Charm

Flower & Garden Magazine, April, 1999 by Betty Rivera

A garden's rainbow of colorful blooms harbors intriguing floral facts and fancies. When shared with children during a garden visit, they imbue a garden with storybook charm and pleasurably nurture in the young an early interest in horticulture.

FLORAL LEGENDS

When retold to children, many floral legends lend enchantment to even the most ordinary of flower gardens. During a pause beside a bed of velvety-faced pansies, children delight in hearing the tale about a little girl whose mother died and whose father planned to remarry. The little girl was fearful that her stepmother would be as frightening as the ones she had read about in her storybooks, so she asked the trolls to help her. When her father brought her stepmother home for the first time, the trolls hid in a nearby rosebush. As the stepmother passed by, the trolls magically changed her into a pansy so that the little girl would always have a sweet-faced, beautiful mother. Pansies are sometimes called "little stepmothers" because of this legend.

The fanciful story of the tulip also has strong appeal for children when they are told that fairies keep special watch over those who plant tulips in their gardens. The cup-shaped tulip blooms are said to be used by fairies as cradles to gently rock their babies as they dance in the moonlight.

Like so many other flowers, the tulip also has a name associated with its shape. Persians called it by the name "tulip" (derived from a Persian word for turban) because it resembled their headdress.

Other flowers have also acquired names associated with their shape. The lovely blue larkspur that grows in so many gardens was first called lousewart because it was known to kill lice. But this ill-suited name was changed to larkspur because its flowers re-sembled the hind claw of the lark. Similarly, delphinium received its name from a botanist who thought that its flowers resembled dolphins.

Another botanist, while wandering in the mountains of Mexico, observed a purple flower that had just finished blooming. He gathered a bag full of the faded flowers to bring back to his native country. Suddenly bandits attacked him and seized his bag. Before shooting him, they opened the bag. When they found it contained nothing but faded flowers the bandits let him go. They thought it would be bad luck to murder a person of weak intellect, which they believed the botanist to be. This flower was brought to Europe, where it acquired the name zinnia, to honor Dr. J.G. Zinn -- the botanist who found it in the Mexican mountains.

FABLES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Not unexpectedly, fables about flowers have originated in various countries, and Irish tales are often about the "wee people," or fairies. Irish grandmothers enjoy telling their grandchildren about the fairy queen who needed a beautiful gown for a ball. Her dressmaker chose to make it from the flower, the pink. To add to the loveliness of the gown, she fringed the edges of the pink. However, she fringed more flowers than she needed for the dress, and since then, the pink has always had fringed edges.

The Irish also tell their children the story of the lily of the valley. Lilies of the valley are called "fairy ladders," and the "wee people" are particularly fond of climbing up and down the bell-shaped flowers that bloom along its stem.

While walking in the garden, children like to hear that in England, May Day was more than a time when children danced around the maypole. Violets, lilacs and daffodils were eagerly gathered on this day while the dew was still on them. The gatherers of these fragrant springtime flowers carried them to the homes of people they loved. They hung them on doorways so that recipients might bathe their faces in the morning dew and retain their facial fairness.

THE ROSE

The Queen of the Flowers -- the rose -- has an abundance of tales to tell. Long ago, the Greeks believed this beauteous bloom was created by the Goddess Cybele. She was jealous of Aphrodite and wanted something on earth more beautiful than her seductive rival.

Christian legendry and facts also abound regarding the rose. The white rose is emblematic of one without peer and is associated with the Virgin Mary who is called "The Mystical Rose." Centuries-old paintings of the Virgin Mary frequently show her in a rose garden with a bouquet or crown of roses.

HISTORY

During a garden visit, a tidbit of American history about the rose can be learned. During World War I, when the wounded were cared for by Red Cross nurses, a song was written about these caring women on the battlefield. "Through the war's great curse, comes the Red Cross Nurse, she's the Rose of No-Man's Land."

Further, this great war spawned the poignant poem by Colonel John McCrae, "In Flanders' field the poppies blow, Between the crosses, row on row" to honor those who had fallen in battles. Today, artificial poppies are sold to commemorate war veterans and Memorial Day.

In centuries past, strange laws were sometimes made about flowers, including the little blue autumn crocus. Saffron to flavor foods, for medicinal purposes and for use as a dye was obtained from this crocus, and traders grew rich from selling it in Syria. Anyone caught stealing one of the little brown knobs from which the plant grows was put to death.