Flowers and Plants, Real and Fake, Can Bring Your Home Joy
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Bill Primavera
Years ago, I had a well-known client for whom I did public relations who had received a beautiful bouquet of flowers for some special event in her life. I complimented the sender for something so lovely for my client to enjoy.
She dismissed my comment by saying that she didn’t like cut flowers and believed they should stay growing in the garden where they belonged.
I was really surprised by that comment, especially when I think of all the times I had expressed sentiments, both of joy and sorrow, by sending flowers.
At one time, I even remember a special Christmas gift for my wife where I had arranged for the delivery of fresh flowers from a local farmer and greenhouse operator for every week of the year.
Several studies show that being around cut flowers, and plants in general, boosts physical and mental health as well as emotional well-being. In other words, having flowers and plants in your home can help improve your quality of life by increasing happiness while instilling a positive outlook. Seems to me everyone would want to be like Eliza Doolittle working all day in a flower market.
I’m not certain if the same benefits listed above apply to fake flowers. I amuse myself by thinking that maybe they can be utilized to express false sentiments.
I am not a flower expert, but when it came time for planting flowers in my garden for cutting that were perennials and beautiful, I chose peonies, because I found them to be so lush and offering many varieties. And, if you are looking for fake flowers that look real, peonies can fill the bill.
When I think of fake flowers, I am reminded of my days as a summer intern at the historic village Old Deerfield in Massachusetts. Main Street was dedicated to the preservation of homes from the 1700s and later where every detail was authentic. Yet, the wife of the village’s founder insisted on filling every historic vase with phony flowers, plastic ones at that. Wherever there was such an occurrence, it could be a little jarring. But nobody ever openly objected because, after all, she was the boss’s wife.
Artificial flowers were also the subject of a song sung years ago by Bobby Darin that had the most depressing refrain I had ever heard. It was about a little orphan girl who made her keep by earning pennies a day making artificial flowers. One day she freezes to death in the cold and wins her just reward by residing in heaven surrounded by fresh flowers and a floral wreath upon her head.
Today, there is no opportunity for me to grow my own flowers, whether for drying (which I have sometimes attempted) or fresh display. However, in our lobby is an immense display of artificial flowers that, when placed in a vase on a large round table in the lobby, reach well over my head. It lacks the past experience I’ve had sourcing fresh flowers from the fabulous Stuart’s Fruit Farm in Granite Springs, planting and nurturing them in the dirt on my knees, then cutting them for display in my home.
But considering the somewhat tender condition of my aging back and knees these days, it will do.
Bill Primavera is a residential and commercial realtor associated with William Raveis Realty, as well as a publicist and journalist writing regularly as The Home Guru. For questions about home maintenance or to buy or sell a home, he can be e-mailed at williamjprimavera@gmail.com or called directly at 914-522-2076.
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