What are the Benefits of Flowers?
If I’m ever feeling frazzled with paperwork, or my eyes are struggling to focus when I’ve been looking at a spreadsheet for too long, I’ll reach to the more practical side of my florist job and I'll make something using flowers. It definitely helps to clear my mind.
I wanted to dig a little deeper into why flowers help us feel so calm and I hope my investigation can help you turn to flowers whenever you want to take a moment to feel calm after a long day (or week!) at work. Taking the time to prepare flowers and place them in a vase is an act of mindfulness which is a soothing remedy for our busy lives. In the post below, I’ve looked below the surface beauty of flowers to really understand how they’re so rewarding when we have a go at arranging them.
Fragrance
Don't you find that floral scents can take you straight back to fond memories?
Rosemary reminds me of summer barbecues with my family in the garden, the smell of lilies remind me of a plate of Mr Kipling’s fondant fancies and tomato plants and flowers remind me of my Grandad’s greenhouse.
During a wedding flowers chat with a couple planning their wedding flowers, I’ll mention using scented flowers for their wedding. That way, in years to come when they visit a garden or have some cut flowers on the kitchen table, which include some of the flower varieties they had at their wedding, the scent will transport them straight back to their wedding day.
Flowers can prolong fond memories and even remind us of little magical moments we’d totally forgotten.
A rustic Mediterranean style bunch of olive leaves and fragrant rosemary to decorate lamps at a wedding reception
Using your hands
I had a read through an article called 'Creativity, Happiness and Your Own Two Hands' in Psychology Today and learnt that using our hands can help decrease stress. When we're working on ‘a deeply absorbing task we lose self-consciousness and pass the time in a contented state.’ It’s reassuring to know that, even though a lot of our work and lives can be busy, rushed and on our screens a lot, we can change tact for a few minutes and use our hands to make or mend something to feel calmer.
Even if you haven’t got the chance or the time to arrange flowers each week, taking some time out for yourself to bake something, mend a piece of clothing, or rearrange your book shelf into rainbow colour order (my cookbooks or organised like this) can help you use your hands in a task that lifts away your stresses from the week for a moment.
Lots of seasonal pink peonies work perfectly together in a vase in May or June.
The reward
Flower arranging is rewarding because you get to use objects and shapes that are already beautiful on their own. If you start by keeping your flower arranging simple, for example you can choose 2 colours to work with or pick one flower variety, like tulips or dahlias, in loads of different colours. Using this trick helps your arrangement come together as it would in nature… and nature is usually right.
Simply begin by placing your foliage in the vase to work as a structure to hold the flowers, then add your flowers to the vase one by one. If it’s not exactly the manicured vase you’d originally envisioned, you can decide at the end that you were going for the rustic look all along.
Flowers are forgiving and that’s something we need when we’re putting them in a vase on Saturday morning after a long week working.
When I meet people at flower workshops, quite a few of them say to me they love flowers but don’t know anything about them or they admit they usually just chuck flowers in a vase when they get them as a gift. It’s understandable that we can freak out about killing flowers or snapping the stems but it takes quite a lot to damage flowers.
Spending some time taking your flowers out of their wrapping, getting arty and arranging your flowers and refreshing their water, not only helps them last longer but also gives you the opportunity to connect with nature and take time for yourself to create something of your own. It’s the little reminder, on your kitchen table, that you created something beautiful that week.
Learn something new
Would you like to learn how to arrange a vase of flowers or make your own flower crown?