Vintage View Sunday: The Language of Flowers

(Linking up with My Romantic Home)

 One unifying theme I noticed with last week's party goers was the use of flowers. 

Whether we bring them indoors or enjoy them outside, May is the time when the 

fields and yards and hills are alive with flowers, and they are universally loved.

Did you know that flowers have been used for hundreds of years 

to communicate secret messages? 

Beverly Seaton's Book is now on my must-read list!

The practice of "selam" in Turkey was discovered by British aristocrats and written about

 in letters from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the 1700s. Girls inside Turkish harems 

would send flowers to lovers outside.  The flowers didn't have specific meanings, 

but rather rhymed with words that had meaning or were familiar to the pair.  

The cultivation of flowers and the study of botany became popular in England and 

France in the 1800s.  Eventually the use of flowers was interwoven with nearly every

 aspect of life--church services, weddings, dances, funerals, and daily wear.  

And in true overboard form, Queen Victoria ascribed meanings to flowers and 

thus began the craze for the language of flowers.  It is reported that even Kate Middleton chose specific flowers for her wedding bouquet based on their traditional meanings.

Last week Magali from The Little White House on the Seaside stenciled white roses (heart unacquainted with love, innocence, secrecy) on a vintage aqua pot and filled it with the most divine flowers that I'm calling lily of the valley (return of love, happiness, sweetness, tears of the Virgin Mary, humility). (I think they are really some type of wild rose. :-)

Stefanie from Rose Petals and Rust also shared an aqua pot filled with many flowers including tulips, which indicates a declaration of love, perfect lover, fame.

Debbie-Dabble shared her gorgeous azalea bush, which has been given the meanings, 

temperance, fragile passion, womanhood:

Mrs.Olsen filled a hotel silver pitcher with lilacs, first emotions of love.

And Brittany from The Rococo Roamer filled a vintage enamelware jug with 

gorgeous pink roses, which means grace and joy.

I have just grazed the surface of this wonderfully rich topic of the language of flowers, but I hope it has brought new knowledge to you as it has to me. On this Sunday, I wish you much grace and joy as you reflect on the beauty in flowers that God has put all around us!

If you were featured, please grab my button from the left sidebar and post on your blog.

I can't wait to see what you link up this week!

Laura

And now on to the next Vintage View Sunday party! 

Please link anything vintage, old post or new!