The Perfect Gentleman Issue 4 | Page 21

Romantic Gentleman In the Middle Ages, many flowers were often used in the medicine of the time and a ‘pocket full of posies’ was used to ward off the deadly plague. In short, where there are flowers, there is life. The life of a relationship can be nurtured and created with flowers and in this article, I shall attempt to give you an insight into the wonderful world of floriography and how you can make the perfect romantic statement with a perfect, special bouquet of beautiful flowers, designed by you just for your beloved. To help you with this, I shall include a very whittled-down list of flowers with their meanings at the end of the article, so that you can have fun making up a floral lexicon for your beloved. It might even inspire you to grow your own garden of love! In order to set the scene a bit, I shall attempt to give you a brief history of this beautiful horticultural language. Back in the 1900s, the Victorians used to refer to the language of flowers as Floriography, which essentially means sending secret messages which were forbidden to be said out loud at the time to your beloved through the arrangement of flowers. The lady who brought the language of flowers to England in the year 1717 was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762). 21