A lady never reveals her age. However, birthday flowers are often looked upon with admiration, not revelation. I picked some blooms and chose the colors for my birthday arrangement. As I was reading about the symbolism of the flowers chosen recently, I wanted to understand the symbolism of these blooms. I also wanted to understand why I was gravitated to these blooms mysteriously. The obvious answer is they looked vivid and fresh. Some, like lisianthus, were chosen because I have grown to appreciate them. While others like ranunculi were selected because I had never used them in any of my earlier arrangements due to their prohibitive cost.

I picked orange dahlias and rust color-tinted solidago from a street vendor. I picked purple lisianthus, white ranunculus, and broad-leafed eucalyptus from an excellent florist store simply called ‘Flowers’.

Orange dahlias symbolize creativity, enthusiasm, and joy. Purple lisianthus symbolize wisdom, dignity, royalty, and accomplishment. Broad-leaf eucalyptus symbolizes protection, strength, abundance, and spiritual cleansing. White ranunculi symbolize grace, purity, fresh love, and elegance. The rust color-tinted solidago represents pioneering spirit and resilience. This was also the order in which the blooms were selected.

It feels nice that I subconsciously chose such positive symbols, but I expected no less from flowers. On a more academic level, flowers chosen for an occasion always had meaning associated with them, even in ancient times. However, the formalized language of flowers, called floriography, evolved from 1810 onwards by French people and became a really popular hobby in the Victorian period. Symbolism of flowers influences floral arrangements even today, for example, wedding arrangements, but I have never selected blooms based on symbolism alone.

I have selected blooms and greens based on color, freshness, variety, seasons, price, longevity, and occasion, etc. I have selected flowers based on my conversations with the florists and their honesty. I do like to go against the norm even in my arrangements. Sometimes, my experiments backfire. Luckily, that did not happen on my birthday, and I liked my arrangements largely.