The Power of Flowers

Painting by James Brandess 

In the wintertime, my grandmother's house was filled with the pungent aroma of geraniums that filled her windowsills and the ever present smell of bread baking in her wood range. In the summertime hollyhocks grew at the edge of her garden. We picked the blossoms and fashioned them into little dolls.

The pleasure that flowers bring to me goes back to my early childhood. In kindergarten our class walked to a local woods near Piper Creek, which was a little hike from the school. We picked wild flowers and learned their names. When we returned to our classroom we put our bouquets into paper May baskets we had made. When I got home I put the basket on the door knob, rang the doorbell and ran to the side of the house to hide until my mother opened the door.

I wrote my first poem when I was around ten about the violets that grew under a bay window at our house. My mother entered it in a writing contest which I did not win.

When I was dating my husband to be in college, his gift of yellow roses on a winter day and daffodils in the springtime won my heart. A man who gives a woman flowers is most likely a keeper.

Flowers are nature's way of coloring our lives. They bring us the three senses of touch, sight and smell. My photos reflect my love of blooms wherever I find them. Naomi's garden on 72nd Avenue between Hart and Pentwater - the zinnias grown in a field by Cargill's Farm Market east of Hart - the beautiful small open space behind the Secret Garden, a shop in Pentwater, to countless flower scenes in many countries of Europe.

Naomi's Garden

Cargill's Farm Market

The Secret Garden

In the winter I try to have fresh flowers in our house. Last week the Fed-Ex man delivered a box full of flowers that were a gift from a sweet niece. When I opened the box I saw a bouquet of one of my favorite flowers, chrysanthemums. These beautiful little gems bring back so many memories of autumn days. To have a bouquet in January of various shades made an ordinary winter day turn into something special.

Thank you Peggy.

The power that flowers have over me can not be easily explained. Maybe it is that now flowers are memory triggers. But still the discovery of a single beautiful rose in Norway or bright pink flowers against a white stucco wall and in front of a green window frame always gives me a rush. I hope it always will.

Just living is not enough....one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.

- Hans Christian Anderson

The Walaker Hotell

Solvorn, Norway