As a flower farmer, I first honed my gardening skills by growing food. Why switch to growing flowers? And what do flowers represent to me?
For me, growing flowers is a shift from consuming, achieving, and striving, toward contentment, quiet observation, and presence in the moment– the transcendent beauty of flowers an impenetrable thread to the divine. Blooming during a distinct season with roots in the soil of the place where we live, flowers connect me (us) to the particular place, time, and land that we inhabit, together. A beautiful, colorful litany and celebration of interdependence and mutual interconnectedness.
Within my home, fresh flowers in a vase give me feelings of peace and luxury in my space, despite it looking like a bomb exploded or an intruder broke in and trashed the place (cough, small children). In other moments, fresh flowers are a motivation to clean up said “messy house,” because, there are fresh flowers in here, after all!
At the end of the day, a house with fresh flowers feels different, and a world without flowers would be complete destruction.