LAPC 221#221 – Flower Favourites – and Why?

I must have flowers, always, and always.
― Claude Monet

This week I hope will bring some colourful joy to us all – we will have more Favourite Flowers than ever! And, should it not be flower season where you are, you are welcome to share other beautiful or interesting plants that you love. If there is a story to go with them, we’d love you to share it with us.

My first choice, in the header, must be a Cattleya Iwanagaara Appleblossom – this was my favourite for many years, but sadly it died last year. Then…tough choices for me as I love many flowers! I will not complain if you too find it difficult…

I love the white Magnolia in my garden. Maybe the reason for loving these flowers has to do with its extreme fragility in our climate. The first Spring flowers, the anemonies, can take several days of frost and bad weather, but most years we lose the magnolias after a day or two – because of the cold.

Our greatest favourites in Sweden must be the shy blue anemonies. We even poke around last year’s leaves in order to find the first blue buds… And, it’s a yearly competition to show the first photo on facebook or instagram…

Sweden and the other nordic countries are rather cold places, so when Spring arrives with the light and warmer temperatures – our first flowers are always the most loved ones.

While the blue anemonies grow rather scarcely and are more of solitaires – the white wood anemonies fill the whole forest with their little faces turned towards the sun – just like we do. They bring out people of all ages to walk in the forest and admire the magic.

As you probably know, wild flowers and grasses have a special place in my heart. In my garden I have many wild summer flowers, and not only for the insects – they are for me too. I love their delicateness, often in contrast to the bigger and sturdier cultivated flowers.

Among cultivated flowers, Miss Willmott’s Ghost is a favourite of late, I just love the silvery whiteness and its sharp needles – and the story of course. How Miss Willmott loved this plant so much that she secretely spread it everywhere in people’s gardens…

The colour of plumbago is heavenly. Ever since I saw the first one, in my teens, in a little village somewhere in the Mediterranian, I was caught. Finally I can have this beauty at home, as my glasshouse makes it possible for it to survive winter temperatures.

And then, one of the strangest flowers…

Callistemon – or bottlebrush. It was love at first sight, 1986 in Nepal. I brought home a twig and made it live, but coming back from one of our travels I found it had died. I have bought several ones over the years, just to see them die during winter, but now they survive happily in the glass house.

Asters are the last ones to flower before winter, and that is a good reason to love them, because they have to endure cold and rain, frost and sometimes snow. Sorry to say, they don’t look this brilliant in 2022. We have had too much rain and too little sun this autumn.

I guess this is what is left before winter, a much appreciated plant firing away its last flames of autumn. It’s even clinging to my washing line – so, no clean wash there right now…

If you love a flower which happens to be on a star, it is sweet at night to gaze at the sky. All the stars are a riot of flowers.
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

For winter then? Well the only flower growing here then is…the frost rose. I don’t know what you call them – if you have them where you live – but my grandmother always said they were frost roses. I wonder if there will be a renaissance for them in our homes this winter…?

Now we are looking forward to seeing your favourite flowers and plants – and don’t forget the stories (if there are any) – I know it will be a colourful and interesting parade! Please link to my original post and use the Lens-Artists tag.

Sincere thanks to Patti for a marvelous challenge that really got us testing and thinking over our photography. I think we all learned something from each other!

Next week Amy will be our host, so be sure to visit her amazing site for inspiration and details! Until then, stay safe and be kind.