Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Healing Power of Flowers

I got the most wonderful envelope of flower advertising from a plant nursery a few days ago and they just screamed for me to glue them into my art journal. So here they are with a few added words and twirls and ink. Summer fun!!!

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"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be
mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us." ~Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

A late cloudy afternoon and one of my backyard Moonflowers on the verge of unfurling. They only live one single night, by morning they are dead.


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"A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect." ~Adabella Radici

A set of silky, wrinkly Moonflower twins in my front yard around my dirty ironwork. They're so fragile, freshly opened with their delicate petals and heavenly scent. The scent is like a drug---I can't keep my nose out of them! They remind me of the sand dollars we used to find on the beach. I saw my first pink and black Sphinx Moths the night of the full moon but they were too elusive to be captured in photos. One even bumped my arm as if to push me out of the way on her way to the intoxicating Moonflower nectar.

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"I know that if odour were visible, as colour is,
I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds." ~Robert Bridges, "Testament of Beauty"

This flower blooms in a little globe (I forget the name!) but it's not an Allium. The last few afternoon rains got her to finally bloom for me this year!


My sassy, pink Pansies have really outdone themselves. I just can't pass one by without snapping a photo.


Sunflowers are nature's enigma. They bloom early with their bright yellow, smiling faces, then bend their heads as if sorrow is weighing them down. I had to change this one to black and white because it just fit better. Doesn't she look forlorn? But the happy part is that she makes seeds and feeds the birds even as she is drying and dying.....


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"Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock." ~Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers

Oh, the Zinnias, like rabbits they multiply! Just when I think they're done blooming, here comes another one in a color I've never seen before. These orange ones are blooming under the Sunflowers.


My backyard Zinna patch by my Tomatoes. They've been loaded with baby bumble bees ever since spring. Every spring I go to Dollar Tree and buy 10 packs of Zinnias for a dollar. So far, I've only planted 4 packs. I'm staggering them now every few weeks so I'll have their company until frost. I recently made a flower bed around my mailbox and mixed Zinnia seeds with Daisies and Purple Coneflowers. They're about 3 inches high. They'll make my mailman happy, bless his old heart. He told me the other day (when I have a package he honks the horn for me because he knows how I love my books and don't want to drive to the P.O. to pick them up) that I didn't look a day over 35. I told him I think he needs glasses. LOL!


"The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life." ~Jean Giraudoux

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Blessings, Peace & Happiness,

~*~Marion~*~

14 comments:

Rikkij said...

Marion-Damn! did my comment go thru? I'll check tomorrow. Grrrr! anyway, phew! I like the garden wandering again. ~rick

Rikkij said...

thinking my original one didn't. It was about moondances and La swamps and pretty flowers. somethin like that. Nice journeey. ~rick

Cindy said...

Nice flowers! I love the quotes- and the one that blooms like a globe is agapanthus.

Marion said...

Rick, which comment? LOL! Come back and regale me with your wonderful words any old time.

Ah, yes, Agapanthus!! Thank you so much, Wildeve! I knew the name (I keep a garden journal, but couldn't find it....LOL!) I'm so happy it bloomed this year and I also noticed it's roots are spreading! Blessings!

Kelly said...

Beautiful flowers, as always! I really liked the black & white for the sunflower as it dies/dries.

Love your art journal page, too!

Karen said...

Marion - These are beautiful! I've never seen or heard of a Moonflower, but how intriguing - one of those beauties that blooms to die. In living is its dying, like all things, but such a thing of beauty!

Pam said...

Love the photos! I love flowers, too.

Margaret Pangert said...

Love that quote by Giraudoux. I was once one of his three mad women in The Mad Woman of Chaillot (in high school, haven't changed much). Also love your zinnias! We use impatiens the same way you use the zinnias--and they bloom through autumn! The moonflowers are the best: how tragic they live one night only to die by sunrise! The collage is great!

Woman in a Window said...

Marion, I think your mailman had it right.

It is uncanny how silky those moonflowers are. I've never seen one and to think they only bloom for one night, it's painfully sad but yet beautiful. That's how it goes, doesn't it? There's a poem or ten within those moonflowers.

Marion said...

Thanks, Kelly. I had fun making that collage page. It's fun to literally cut and paste after doing it on a computer. LOL!

Glad you enjoyed the photos, Pammie!! Blessings!

Karen, I discovered a package of Moonflower seeds in a Wal-Mart many years ago and bought them for the name. They're a member of the Morning Glory family and, as the Morning Glory only lives in the a.m., the Moonflower owns the night, and oh the scent----more exotic than any perfume I've ever smelled. They vine, though, and can put out hundreds of flowers in a season, especially is you have a fence for them to climb. I start mine indoors in the Winter and get them in the ground asap. I even keep some in pots. The good thing? When they die, if you leave the vines up to dry in winter, you get literally hundreds of seeds from the dried pods for the next year. I have gallon baggies of seeds, so we always have Moonflowers.

I can't see you as a madwoman, Margaret....okay, maybe under the full moon. Ha! Just kidding. I like Impatiens, too, but don't have as much luck with them. Blessings!

Erin, I do have several Moonflower poems in my notebooks somewhere around here, along with about a thousand pictures of them! Ha! I spent an hour just now looking for an old notebook to find a quote about ebb and flow....and managed to round up about 15 journals/notebooks but not the one I wanted....did I mention I was a bit scatterbrained? I am. I had a few lines come to me about rivers/aging and ebb/flow and I HAD TO HAVE THAT QUOTE. I even tried googling it to no avail. It'll come to me or I'll sic St. Anthony on it. LOL! Blessings to you!!!

Delwyn said...

Hi Marion

the collage looks like it was a lot of fun, how peaceful collaging is...

your flowers are so pretty especially the moon flowers like frilled satin...

Yes the blue one is an apapanthus.

Flowers are natures great masters...

Happy days

Judith Ellis said...

Oh, how very lovely, Marion. Thank you so very much for that. Love Iris Murdock!

Margaret Pangert said...

p.s.: Marion, come visit my studio! I promised you I would do the same thing as Delwyn and you! Luv

Marion said...

Sure thing, Margaret.

And Delwyn and Judith, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your comments! Blessings, all!