Hi, my beautiful flower friends! This week's post is about peonies, color and mental health.
When we moved to the farm in 2014 we were surprised to see that it came with peony plants! Peonies are important to me because they remind me of spring at my grandparent's farm in Ohio. My sweet grandma had beautiful plants laden with blooms growing along the fence line. I can still feel the warm sun and slight spring breeze on my face, but most importantly, I still feel the love and joy that those beautiful blooms filled me with. It's amazing how well these memories have stuck with me through the years. Did you know that peony plants can live for up to 50 years? Think of all the memories and smiles that can be made!
Each year we've been on the farm, we've added a few of these smile inducing peony plants. Our goal is to line our driveway with them. Imagine it, turning into the driveway and being greeted with the lush foliage and delightful blooms of all those peonies. Just thinking about it brings a smile to my face and eases my mood!
Many leading education institutions have done research on the effect flowers have on mental health. This research suggests that being around flowers helps to reduce depression, stress and arguments while increasing health, healing, happiness, compassion and community. Experiencing flowers is a great way to put yourself at ease and connect with others and nature. Flowers have the ability to help create a sense of community as they calm us so we are more likely to open our hearts to others and focus on the positive things happening in our lives. The flowers don't have to be big designs, small bouquets placed throughout the house or on your desk at work are all that it takes to create a relaxed environment, one that encourages people to open up and create relationships with each other.
Colors can also be a pick-me-up and can impact out lives greatly. Just take my two most favorite colors for example, red and blue (which happens to be the 2020 Pantone color of the year).
The feelings that the color red invokes are passion, strength, and energy while blue invokes peace, harmony, and trust. Pink and purple are my next favorite colors, probably because pink is a tint of red, and purple is a achieved by mixing red and blue together to create a secondary color. Purple is the color associated with spirituality, wisdom, imagination and creativity. The color pink suggests balance, love, compassion, and playfulness. Combining flowers with colors can instantly create a feeling of peace and happiness or energize your mood. How sweet is that?!
This design is probably one of my favorites from last season. It fills me with hope, joy and love as it reminds me of those gorgeous peonies that grow along my grandma's fence.
