According to the latest issue of Family Circle magazine (okay, I’m bored today):
“Researchers have found that flowers put a genuine smile on 100% of recipients’ faces. They don’t know why they create happiness, but those receiving them reported less stress, sadness and anxiety, and a greater sense of well-being.”
Any kind of flower anywhere makes me feel good! Why do you suppose that is?
Susan
I love flowers as well.
They make me happiest when they are outside and growing, not indoors in a vase, slowly dying.
that’s why I tend rosebushes at my parents house!
Some folks think that tending flowers is unmanly…
tell that to my wife…she thinks its sexy!
I think they are rare enough that they seem sort of like gems. They are beautiful and complex—so many colors in each one, and parts and textures, and smells, and so delicate, they only last a short while so they are all the more precious.
There are a few people, with severe allergies and/or asthma, who don’t get a smile from flowers, but I’m with you. I like flowers. Up till today I had some on my avatar. It was an Oklahoma lake in full bloom with American lotus.
Glad you all feel that way! They are an important part of the environment too!!!
Tending flowers unmanly! I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Many men have spent their whole lives developing different varieties of flowers. Many men write books about flower gardening. People who say that are just plain silly. I’m sure you know that. 
Walden, I’m one of those allegic people - but there are ways around it…
Just go with “low” pollen producing plants. Lots of flowers that grow from bulbs and tubers are low pollen producting, so tulips, daffodils, tuberous begonias, etc. are all good. Daylilies and Asiatic lilies, although loaded with pollen, have a very heavy pollen, so they are ok, too.
If - like me - you are highly allergic to ragweed, also stay away from anything in the daisy family - there are often cross allergies associated with these.
Of course, to be REALLY on the safe side, you need to convince your entire neighborhood to follow this, which I have yet to do!
So I just live on antihistimines (and the kids on shots).
Missy
Um, about the allergies - people are generally not actually allergic to flowers. Pollen carried by bees/insects (flowers, flowering trees, etc.) is too large to be inhaled and therefore doesn’t cause the histamine to react. Most allergists (at least board certified allergists) don’t even skin test for flowers because they usually are not the problem. The problems are the mini-pollens: trees, grass, weeds. You might actually be allergic to something (a tree/grass/weed) that’s pollinating at the same time, so you think it’s the flowers. (That said, however, they can be irritants.)
Susan
Here’s one of the few I can grow Epimedium rubrum:
They are very tiny.
I saw that report too, but in the newspaper.
I like flowers but have discouraged people from gifting me with them, mainly because I find most floral arrangements to be stiff and unpleasantly inorganic. The beauty of the flowers is almost lost in the plasticity of the arrangement.
I agree with Cran on this one. I particularly like the little white star-shaped ones growing in our yard, and the dandelions. I also love it when median strips are improved by the scattering of wildflowers.
If they must be cut flowers, then at least they should look free and loose in their vase…but I’d rather they wilt outside on the ground and become organic fertilizer.
agree, Susan, like I said, flowers with the “heavy” pollen are fine.
Since kidlets and I are allergic to grass, trees and weeds (and kids to mold, dustmite droppings, and one to cow’s milk), after 44 tested things, it didn’t seem useful to add more to it. Instead, the doctor just told me about the things like the daisy family since usually if your allergic to ragweed, you have trouble with that, too.
I’m just coming off a REALLY bad week. We were outside all last weekend, and I don’t know what tree (think it was probably the locust) was bothering me, but I was really miserable on Monday and Tuesday. I still don’t have my voice back (I sownd wike I’m tawking troo by nose).
When I get like this - ANY air born particle will give me trouble, even if I’m not “officially” allergic to it.
Missy
I went for a walk last week and saw an almost microscopic purple flower on a “weed” in a field. I got down very close to it and found it to be an amazingly complex, absolutely gorgeous thing with tiny blue stripes through the petals, and one petal a much paler purple/blue than the others - it was that way on every one of them. It was such a beautiful surprise.
Susan
For traditional Chinese, flowers are given at the time of death. Americanized Chinese have let go of this, but be mindful about giving flowers to first generation Chinese, as it can be a social faux pas.
One thing nice about being back in Texas is that even here in the Dalla-Fort Worth “Metroplex”, there are fields of flowers to be seen.
The variety is amazing. I also like the details, which is why I have a whole [u]gallery of flower parts[/u]. (I tried posting some here, but the links got funny.)
Gorgeous! For whoever was talking about African violets a while back: the thread convinced me to try again, so I bought two and put them on my kitchen table where they get north light. They’re deliriously happy and on their second blooming. I’ve never had any do this great. I’ll take a picture later today and try to post it.
Susan
They were there when I started, then disappeared. 
Try the link, though.
My mom was fortunate and on cloud nine, when she discovered deep in overgrown bushes of the backyard of a house that she just moved into to fine one of the few orchids that grow in Ontario, Canada.
It was the Ladyslipper, only two small clumps of these ever grew in the then deep undergrowth of the backyard and she never touched that area, it always grew wild. Also it was a family secret that they grew there naturally.
MarkB
Flowers are very cool and Oh So Macho!
I made it out to Joshua Tree National Monument in March for a “hundred year bloom”. We’ve had so much rain in So California this year that many rare blossoms had moisture for long enough to germinate and mature.
It was very cool!
http://www.tofutaco.com/JoshuaTree/
