CNY Floral Blooms and Their Underlying Meanings
A household decoration, a celebratory gesture, a confession of love – flowers are timeless beauties that have withstood generations and remains one of life’s greatest pleasures. While humans laugh with smiles, the earth laughs with flowers.
This Chinese New Year, Floraison Studio has created a special floral centerpiece that will unquestionably illuminate the surroundings of wherever it’s placed. Starring blooms like peony, peach and cherry blossoms, celosia, and yellow oncidium, this centerpiece is bound to usher luck and prosperity into the new year.
Peonies are a symbol of wealth, good fortune, and a happy marriage. Initially grown for medical purposes, this beautiful flower has quite a handful of medicinal properties such as relieving headaches, childbirth pain, and asthma.
If you are planning to grow some in your garden, do take note because peonies are huge! They bloom in every color except blue, can grow up to 10 inches wide, and are dubbed by some as “roses as big as cabbages”. Remember to impart some gardening skills to your children too because when grown in a favorable environment, they can outlive us and continue producing flowers past a hundred years old. Talk about long-lived!
Cherry blossoms, or what most prefer to call Sakura, is no stranger to most of us. It is the national flower of Japan and a flower many scramble to see whenever Spring arrives. It belongs to the rose family, Rosaceae, and only has the lifespan of a week.
Back in 1912, Japan sent some cherry blossom trees to the U.S. as a form of goodwill and received flowering dogwood trees in return. They symbolize love, luck, and, mostly to the Japanese, the fleeting beauty of life.
Interestingly, Japan does not hold the title of The Cherry Blossom Capital of the World. Macon, Georgia does. Home to 300,000 - 350,000 cherry blossom trees, Macon holds a month-long cherry blossom festival yearly after the founder of the first cherry blossom tree in Macon agreed to share 500 of these trees to the community.
The celosia is a small, edible plant that belongs to the amaranth family. It is named after “keleos”, a Greek word that means “burning”, because apart from mirroring the head of a rooster, it also looks like a flame.
Due to its soft texture, it is mainly used in cooking, tastes like spinach, and is a staple food in Nigeria. And just like peonies, celosia possess many medicinal purposes. It is used to treat blood diseases, intestinal worms, mouth and eye problems, and diarrhea too!
These velvety flowers are perfect for floral centerpieces because they last a long time in a bouquet and grow well in containers.
The most highly coveted of ornamental plants is the yellow oncidium. It is a delicate, exotic and graceful flower that represents love, luxury, beauty and strength. Due to the unique bump on the lips of the flower, this decadent bloom took the name “oncidium”, after the Greek word “onkos” that means “swelling or mass”.
This flower belongs to the orchid family and has attained nicknames such as dancing lady orchids and tiger orchid from florists. In fact, according to the American Orchid Society, the oncidium orchid species has at least 300 accepted names!
There is no denying that this botanical ornament by Floraison Studio is not only eye-catching and charming but also an intriguing conversation topic. Liven up your house with these festive flowers and brighten the overall atmosphere this Chinese New Year.