Flowers for springtime

As it is springtime, it is the time to think about flowers. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of decorative vegetable matter flowers evolved to be attractive to bees and other pollinating insects. Of course we also appreciate beautiful blooms. Bringing joy to the heart flowers have inspired paintings, poems and songs.

TULIPS FROM AMSTERDAM
Max Bygraves

When it’s Spring again I’ll bring again
Tulips from Amsterdam
With a heart thats true I’ll give to you
Tulips from Amsterdam
I can’t wait until the day you fill
These eager arms of mine
Like the windmill keeps on turning
That’s how my heart keeps on yearning
For the day I know we can share these
Tulips from Amsterdam

When it’s Spring again I’ll bring again
Tulips from Amsterdam
With a heart thats true I’ll give to you
Tulips from Amsterdam
I can’t wait until the day you fill
These eager arms of mine
Like the windmill keeps on turning
That’s how my heart keeps on yearning
For the day I know we can share these
Tulips from Amsterdam

Tulips from Amsterdam was a big hit for Max Bygraves, and every year tulips from Amsterdam are a big hit with gardeners and flower aficionados. Although Holland is famed for its tulip festivals, these are also held every year in Britain and the USA.

‘Sunflowers’ by troubled Dutch artist Van Gogh is one of the worlds most famous sunflower paintings. Sunflowers are one of the more useful flowers, with there oil and seeds being prized for culinary purposes. The tallest ever sunflower was over an incredible 25 feet tall.

The poet 19th century poet Wordsworth found inspiration from the Lake District, in the north of England. The quintessential British springtime flower the daffodil inspired him to write this, his most celebrated work:

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.