Floriography, by Gina Margolies — flowers

Hello October Birthday Blossoms and Happy Autumn!   Welcome to the latest edition of Fun Flower Facts, where whimsy meets who, what, where, when, and why. In this edition, we will be introduced to Mr. Luther Burbank. Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist, and agricultural scientist. Burbank grew up on a farm and had a high school education. He taught himself botany and agriculture. Burbank developed over 800 strains and varieties of plants. You might be familiar with some of the flowers he cultivated, such as the Shasta Daisy.  The Russet & Burbank potato, often called the Idaho potato, is...

With the official first day of autumn seven days away, here at Birthday Blossoms HQ we are enjoying the golden season. The dog days of summer have melted into warm afternoons and barely cool evenings. It is the late summer into early fall golden time of year. And speaking of golden, this time of year brings to the forefront something golden that Birthday Blossoms loves, namely the Golden Proportion, close cousin of our beloved Fibonacci sequence.   Regular readers of Floriography know all about the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two...

Sometimes, you just have to be patient.    Those who love a warm, sunny spring have not had an easy task this year. Here at Birthday Blossoms HQ, we have had a rainy, chilly, very dreary spring thus far. The temperature has been hanging in the 50s, it has rained more days than not every week, and the sun has been in a stingy mood. It feels like we have been waiting for spring forever. Rather than complain about the weather, we decided to plant a balcony garden. While we don’t love non-stop rain, the garden does. And the reward for...

Happy Birthday to all our beloved April babies! Your Birthday Blossom is the adorable daisy, carrying a message of happiness, loyal friendship and, of course, springtime. Spring has not quite sprung here at Birthday Blossoms HQ, but it’s close. The cold streak of winter has been interrupted here and there, by a day last week when it was only slightly chilly, two days in a row when it was warm in the sun, and day before yesterday it reached seventy degrees for a few fleeting moments in the late afternoon. Spring in a technical sense is just about to meet...

We’re almost there! That sentence expresses how I feel every year, right about this time. March is a gateway to the glories of spring. Sure it can be cold and windy in March. In New York City, we can see snow. But we also see glimmerings, beckonings, whispering beautiful words. Spring is just around the corner. As I write this post, the official start of spring is two days away. But the whisperings started a few weeks ago, on those days when it was cold with moments when it wasn’t. Walking into a sunny spot and feeling the rays on...