Ever since Cupid shot his first arrow into a love-shy suitor, men–and in more recent decades, women–have given flowers to their true loves on St. Valentine’s Day.

The holiday, which has its origins in the pagan festival of Lupercalia, is recognized in England, France, Austria, Germany, and the United States.

Although the custom of sending romantic cards to suitors began in the early part of the nineteenth century, flowers are a more recent custom and one perpetuated by the floral industry, not any ancient belief.

Traditionally, long-stemmed, red roses are associated with this holiday although carnations, tulips, azaleas, and other flowers are catching up in popularity.

So are sweetheart or miniature roses, which are just as attractive, but not as expensive, as tea roses and come in the same range of colors from red and pale pink to white, cream, lavender, peach, and yellow.

If you are buying a dozen roses to go, instead of having the florist deliver them, select blooms that are just beginning to open. Wrap the flowers well to protect against the cold as chilling February temperatures can damage the delicate blossoms.

An alternate to roses is to have your florist make up a mixed bouquet with a red-pink-white color scheme. Possibilities include carnations, daisies, freesia, and tulips as well as more exotic choices like alstromeria, red anthurium, or ginger. Add a few sprigs of baby’s breath for the finishing touch.

Potted flowering plants will help extend your Valentine’s Day greetings and brighten up winter days ahead.

Most florists carry potted tulips, azaleas, cyclamens, and chrysanthemums and may have more unusual varieties such as kalanchoe with its scarlet red flowers set high on spikes or cineraria with its fuzzy leaves and mound of vivid red, blue, or purple blossoms.

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Want to exercise your green thumb this winter? Try growing cacti as houseplants. True cacti, a type of succulent, are native to the Americas. Many types may be grown as houseplants, each different in size, color, shape, and flowering habit. Among the most popular types are the star cactus, golden barrel, old man, bishop’s cap, bunny ears, rat-tail, pincushion, Turk’s cap, and ball cactus.

Most cacti purchased at plant shops, garden stores, florists, and grocery and discount stores are grown alike. They have one thing in common, however. They all prefer a growing space with plenty of sunlight. Cacti grown on windowsills facing south usually flourish. The next best exposure is light from an east or west window since it can provide direct sun for part of the day.

If you wish, you can place the plants outdoors in summer. Many gardeners think there is too little light in our area during the winter, but this is often not the case. With snow cover more light is reflected during the winter than penetrates through shade trees around the home in summer.

Perhaps the main trick to growing cacti is proper watering. Many cacti have been killed from overwatering during the winter, including mine! If the weather is cloudy, or even predicted to be cloudy, don’t water. If in doubt whether the soil is dry, don’t water.

When watering, apply only a small amount to moisten the soil area around the roots. Allow the soil to become dry before additional watering. Maintain the temperature during the growth period (usually spring and summer) at 60 degrees F at night and 10 to 15 degrees warmer during the day. During the dormant period (usually fall and winter), reduce the temperature to 45 to 55 degrees F.

If most of your rooms are warmer than this, then place your cacti near a window (but not touching it) where the temperature may be five to 10 degrees cooler than in the middle of the room. Fertilize the cacti several times during the growth period with a liquid fertilizer. Products labeled 5-10-5 or 10-20-10, and those containing fish emulsion, are all suitable.

Follow directions on the label carefully. For repotting, use a soil mix prepared for cacti. Or make your own from one part coarse builder’s sand, one part loam soil, and one part peat moss. Finally, if you brush against your cactus and get a few spines stuck in your fingers, use heavy duty tape (sticky side to the spines) to pull them out.

Watering frequency depends on the medium in which they are potted. Most orchids cannot survive prolonged drought and should be watered often. However, some require a “dry season” of six to eight weeks during which watering is reduced but not stopped.

This “dry season” must occur immediately after maturation of the current season’s growth and is often necessary to initiate flowering. Nutrients must be provided in dilute concentrations when orchids are grown on inert media. Moderate air circulation is required for best growth. Be aware that many factors may prevent flowering in orchids.

Insufficient light is the most common reason. If there is too little light, the leaves become a deep, lush green. With too much light the leaves turn yellow-green. For proper flowering, the leaves should have only a slight yellow tint. Some orchids may not bloom if the nighttime and daytime temperatures are the same.

Consistently warm temperatures are good for vegetative growth, but may suppress flower development. A 10 to 15 degree reduction in the night temperature for two weeks in the fall or spring is needed to initiate flower development. Dry air may result in failure of flower buds to open and death of plants in extreme cases.

A relative humidity of 60 percent will alleviate the problem. Orchids are affected by many of the same pests and diseases as other houseplants. Insects such as mealybugs and aphids can be controlled with the proper insecticide. Good cultural practices and the purchase of healthy plants will reduce the chance of disease although most fungal and bacterial diseases may be controlled using commercially available fungicides and bactericides.

If you can’t get to Hawaii this winter, then why not bring Hawaii to you? Create a tropical paradise by growing orchids indoors.

Granted, care must be taken when growing orchids at home. However, they are no more difficult to grow than most other houseplants when their particular growth requirements are met. In fact, some orchids are as easy to grow as cacti.

Although there are more than 25,000 species growing in climates ranging from the arctic tundra to the tropical rain forest, the orchids most often cultivated are species from tropical climates. They are commonly grouped by cool, intermediate, and warm temperature requirements based on the plants’ optimum night requirements (45 to 50 degrees F, 55 to 65 degrees F, and above 65 degrees F, respectively).

The beginning grower should consider starting with established plants which should bloom within a year. Seedlings are less expensive but may take up to five years to flower. Natural species may be grown, but the hybrids are often more vigorous and less demanding in their cultural requirements.

Light is often a factor limiting the growth of orchids. Most orchids require relatively high light intensities and should be grown in an east or south window. However, a few will grow well under low intensity fluorescent lights.

Orchids vary in their water requirements. Many tropical orchids are epiphytes, growing on the side of trees, and will not do well if their roots stay wet. Epiphytes should be grown in a very porous potting medium such as coarse fir bark, lava rock, or coarse perlite. Terrestrial types rooted in soil require a well-drained, finer textured growth medium.

Poinsettias have become synonymous with the holiday season. In fact, December 12 has been proclaimed by an Act of Congress as National Poinsettia Day to commemorate the death of Joel Poinsetta who introduced this Mexican native plant to the U.S.

Many varieties have been developed over the last few decades, with currently well over 100 different varieties in a range of flower colors and styles.  To get the longest life and enjoyment from the ones you purchase or receive as gifts, follow a few simple tips.

Start with proper selection. This means choosing plants with healthy, dark green foliage and brightly colored “bracts”.  Bracts are actually colored leaves that look like flower petals, but aren’t.  Poinsettias are available with red, white, pink, peach, yellow, marbled (pink and white patterns), or bi-colored bracts.  Still most poinsettias grown and sold are red, but if you want to be different, or “design” with them, look for one of these other colors.

Some of the newer selections include red with white spots as in the cultivars (cultivated variety) with the name ‘Jingle Bells’.  There are variations in pink from bright to a soft peppermint to rose to salmon.  One of my favorites has cream, rose and pink, and goes by the name ‘Monet Twilight‘.

Reds range from bright to dark maroon, almost purple. Some “marbles” can be white and pink in roughly equal amounts, or more of one color.  There are even double flowers with more bracts, such as the red ‘Valentine’ and the Winter Rose series containing several colors.  There is even a red poinsettia with green and white variegated leaves.

Green leaves should be just that, not yellowing or falling off, signs of poor culture and temperatures.  Don’t buy drooping plants, a sign they’ve been stressed from lack of water.  If a plant is wilted, but the soil is wet, the plant may have a root rot disease.  Plants crowded together for more than a few days may lose bracts prematurely.

The “true” flowers are found in clusters in the center of the colored bracts, and are called “cyathia”. Poinsettias are technically in flower when these pollen-bearing clusters are open.  Longest life comes from choosing plants with these cyathia not yet open, or just opening.

You should consider the shape and proportion of the plant. While plant height and pot size aren’t significant individually, the relationship between them is important for the best-looking plant. The ratio of plant-to-pot size should be about two to one (a 12-inch plant in a six-inch pot, for example.)

Poinsettias are extremely sensitive to cold and freezing temperatures, so make sure your plant is wrapped when carrying it between the store and your car when outdoor temperatures are below 50 degrees (F). Never transport it in the trunk where it is apt to freeze, even in protective wrapping.  Buy on warmer days if possible.

If you are concerned that poinsettias are poisonous, don’t be.  This myth was based on a false report many decades ago.  Poinsettias have been shown by scientific studies at Ohio State University to not be poisonous, and poisonous plant books only list occasional cases of vomiting if enough leaves are ingested.  To avoid even this, keep plants away from children and pets as you would harmful household products.

Nature doesn’t cut back garden mums when their blossoms fade in fall. Neither should you.

Gardeners who live in the South, where mums will continue to grow throughout the winter, need to cut their plants back to encourage continued bloom and prevent legginess. But not here in the North. Research by one of the world’s leading breeders of chrysanthemums indicates that mums grown in northern gardens may survive the winter when mulched, but not cut back.

For one, not cutting back leaves the plants better able to hold the mulch placed around them. Mulching is a standard technique used to protect plants against fluctuating temperatures. It also helps keep moisture in the soil.

A good snow cover will protect plants, but as there’s no guarantee that it will snow or how much we’ll get, I recommend using evergreen boughs or applying a thick mulch of straw or bark. Don’t use dead leaves as they tend to pack tightly. Apply only after the ground begins to freeze, never before.

The idea is to keep the plants uniformly cold, not to protect them from the cold. Delaying mulching gives the plants time to harden before winter arrives. Of course, the longer the plants are in the ground before the first freeze, the better their chance for survival.

However, in research trials at the University of Vermont Horticultural Research Center in S. Burlington, of the 80 varieties trialled over a period of four years, none was found to be reliably hardy for the Burlington area, one of the milder areas of the state. Lack of a good snow cover affected the plants’ survival rate. Many of these same varieties would probably do well in areas that receive heavier snowfalls.

Next spring, if your plants have survived, uncover them as soon as they start to grow again. Divide the plants when new shoots reach four inches high.

After digging up the plants and discarding the old center portion of the root mass, separate the young offshoots. Then plant them 18 to 24 inches apart.

Water thoroughly and apply a 5-10-5 or 10-20-10 liquid or granular fertilizer. Slow release fertilizers, organic fertilizers, and even generous applications of compost can also be used.  Fertilize two to three times during the growing season if using the non-organic fertilizers.  If using organic fertilizers, and leaves turn light green or yellow, this indicates the plants need more fertilizer.

Within weeks, you will need to start pinching off new growth to produce full, multi-bloomed plants for next fall. Continue pinching whenever new shoots are three to five inches long, stopping around mid-July.

There is only one place in Japan, according to legend, where the chrysanthemum is not grown. Long ago in the city of Himeji, a nobleman lived in a large castle with many treasures.

Trusting no one, he allowed only his serving maid O-kiku, whose name means chrysanthemum, to handle and dust his possessions. One day she discovered one of his ten precious plates was missing. Not being able to find it, and fearing she would be blamed, she drowned herself in the well.

Every night her ghost would come up to count the plates. Her repeated screeching upon finding one missing drove the nobleman out of the castle, which then fell into ruin. The people of Himeji, delighted by his departure, thereafter refused to grow the chrysanthemum in honor of O-kiku.

The word “chrysanthemum” comes from the Greek words meaning “golden flower,” but a German legend refers to another of the many colors of chrysanthemums.

One cold, snowy Christmas Eve in Germany’s Black Forest, a peasant family was sitting down to a meager supper when they heard a wailing. At first they thought it was the wind. But upon hearing the sound repeatedly, they opened the door and found a beggar.

They ushered in the poor man who was blue with cold, wrapped him in blankets, and shared their food. Instantly, the blankets were shed, revealing a man in shining white clothing with a halo around his head. Proclaiming himself the Christ Child he fled. The next morning, outside the door where he had stood, were two white chrysanthemums.

Today, many Germans bring white chrysanthemums into their homes on Christmas Eve, believing that by doing so they are sheltering the Christ Child. So when you see chrysanthemums in gardens this fall, think of these rich legends from other cultures. And mark your calendar now to remind yourself to buy some white chrysanthemum cut flowers or a potted plant this Christmas season.

With the arrival of cooler weather, many gardeners turn to fall chrysanthemums to provide color for the spots left vacant by tired summer annuals. What most don’t realize is that they are planting a species whose relatives go back centuries, even millennia, and whose origins are buried in legends.

Chrysanthemums are said to have first come from China although they are more often associated with Japan. According to an ancient Chinese legend, about 3,000 years ago, an emperor was told that the Dragon-fly Island in the Sunrise Sea (Japan) had a magic herb that would restore his youth. But since only youth could collect it, he sent a dozen young men and a dozen girls to the island.

They arrived at the islands after surviving perilous storms and attacks by sea serpents, and finding neither magic herb nor inhabitants on the island, they decided to stay. The prized possession they brought for trading, and now nurtured as a tie with their homeland, was the golden chrysanthemum.

Of course, Japanese mythology provides a different version of how the chrysanthemum came to be found in Japan. Legend has it that in the beginning, there were so many gods in heaven that some, including the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami, were sent to the earth on a cloud-bridge. Once on earth, the goddess created the gods of the winds, mountains, sea, and others, finally dying upon creating the god of fire.

Izanagi missed Izanami and so followed her to the place of Black Night where she had gone, only to see vile sights and be pursued by the Old Hag of Black Night. Narrowly escaping back to the earth, the god Izanagi went straight to the river for a purification bath. As he shed his clothes and they touched the ground, they turned into twelve gods. His jewels became flowers–one bracelet an iris, another a lotus, and his necklace a golden chrysanthemum.

Japan’s imperial emblem for ten centuries featured a golden chrysanthemum with sixteen petals. In the War of Dynasties, which began in 1357 and lasted for 55 years, each warrior of the South wore a yellow chrysanthemum as a golden badge of courage.

Gladioli, asters, chrysanthemums, and everlastings are some of our common fall garden flowers. Have you ever wondered where these originally came from?

I can tell you, with a little help from a book by Diana Wells entitled 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names. These are only some of the 100 flowers she describes in her book.

Most of our gladioli came from Africa, where the corms were roasted like chestnuts and are said to taste like them. (Corms are the swollen underground bulbous parts for storage of foods.). Even before these were introduced during the eighteenth century, primarily from South Africa, gladioli were familiar plants for centuries in the Mediterranean.

Known in ancient Greece, the ancient name for this flower–xiphium–means sword, referring to the leaf shape. The Latin word for sword–gladius–gives us the name we know today.

Rare gladioli even existed in ancient Britain, with the herbalist John Gerard referring to them as “Sword-flag.” One of the most noteworthy gladiolus introductions was in 1904 by Francis Fox. An engineer who built a railway bridge over the Zambesi River at Victoria Falls in Africa, he discovered the gladiolus by the waterfall which is responsible for the yellow and orange colors bred into subsequent gladioli.

Although many of our asters are native to North America (the taller New England and shorter New York asters being the most common), most of the cultivars have been found, and the breeding done, in England and abroad. The English at one time called asters “starworts,” referring to the star shape of the flowers and supposed healing properties in old times (meaning of “wort”). The herbalist John Parkinson said asters were used for “the biting of a mad dogge.”

Asters in England originally came from Europe. The plant explorer John Tradescant the Younger (his father John also was an explorer) brought back the first North American asters to England in 1637. These and the European “starworts” were crossed for new introductions, with many recent selections this century. Since they bloom around Michaelmas Day, a late September holiday in Britain, they are referred to abroad as Michaelmas Daisies.

The fall chrysanthemum, fall mum, or hardy mum (not really hardy in northern climates) is actually a Chinese chrysanthemum, having been cultivated in China for 2,500 years prior to being introduced to the West. There they symbolized a scholar in retirement and were one of the four noble plants, along with bamboo, plum, and orchid. Dew from the petals supposedly gave longevity, with an infusion of the petals and leaves used for wine and medicine.

Zen Buddhist monks took chrysanthemums to Japan around 400 A.D. The symbol of the Mikado, which appeared to be a Rising Sun, was actually a 16-petaled chrysanthemum. In 1795 the first mum was exhibited in England, with additional plants sent from the East by tea inspector John Reeves in the nineteenth century. The pompom mum was originally called the chusan daisy and was sent to the West by the explorer Robert Fortune. First grown in France, it was renamed the pompom mum because it resembled the pompoms on sailors’ hats there.

Everlastings are so called since they seem to last indefinitely. The scientific name Helichrysum came from the Greek for sun (helios) and golden (chryson). The Greeks used the flowers to make wreaths and decorate statues of the gods, as well as to mix with honey to treat burns. These flowers were known to the Egyptians prior to this time, however. A strawflower, the Oriental helichrysum, was brought to England in 1619 from Crete by way of the botanic garden in Padua, Italy.

The everlasting we know in our gardens, however, is the species bracteatum from Australia. It was brought to England by Sir Joseph Banks, one of the few men on Captain Cook’s expedition to survive. Subsequently, Victorians used everlastings to decorate their hot and stuffy parlors where few other plants would survive. Today the many bright colors are popular in cutting gardens and dried flower arrangements.

The next time you see a modern selection of any of these four flowers, stop a moment to recall their prestigious history–their centuries of ancestors and the many nations and cultures that have also enjoyed or used them.

By Dr. Leonard Perry, Extension Professor
University of Vermont

Come fall, and you can see gardens brimming with big and bright Chrysanthemums. These majestic flowers are among the popular ones that are sent across through flower delivery. Some like to grow them in yards, some prefer decorating them in different arrangements for interiors, and some love gifting them.

Chrysanthemums, also called Mums, come in different colours, patterns and sizes. The vitality and the variety of Chrysanthemums gives us joy and also helps us express ourselves. Different colours convey different meanings and different varieties suit different occasions.

Varieties: Red Rover Mums, Safari Sunset Mums, Football Mums, Curly Willow Mums, Spider Mums, Pompom Mums and Daisy Mums. Colours: white, orange, yellow, purple, bronze, pink, and red.

While reds say “I love You”, the yellows express slighted love; on the other hand, whites symbolise truth. Chrysanthemum derives its name from two Greek words: ‘chrysos’ + ‘anthemon’.

‘Chrysos’ means gold; ‘anthemon’ which means flower. This new word – chrysanthemum – is coined by Swedish botanist Karl Linnaeus, who had introduced this flower to the western world. Not just western world, Chrysanthemums are also quite popular in the oriental world.

The Chinese find it as a wonderful cure for headache, delicious as salad, and refreshing as a festive tea. Japanese adopted a single chrysanthemum as the crest and official seal of the Emperor. They celebrate Festival of Happiness by earmarking a day as the National Chrysanthemum Day. Chrysanthemums are loved all over the world, not just for their beauty and benefits, but also for their longevity.

They have a life span of up to two weeks. That makes them a wonderful gift, as the beauty and vibrancy of these flowers would linger on to the senses for a long time. It is very simple to send chrysanthemums to someone with the help of online flower delivery services. Just choose flower delivery and submit some details. Your wishes along with fresh Chrysanthemum reaches your dear ones on the right time.