People of Anfield
Among the Wildflowers
The Victorians assigned a meaning to different flowers: red roses for love, daisies for innocence. They used this language of flowers, this floriography, to communicate in secret and to convey specific messages.
I have always loved flowers. My mum’s favourite were roses. When we moved into our council house, it was the first time that she had her own garden and she loved it. She would spend hours looking after the multitude of flowers, but especially the various types of roses. The colours are vivid in my memory; red, pink, yellow and white. The scent of a rose takes me back to the garden of my childhood. The sweet, floral notes of some and the deep, musky smell of others, particularly after rainfall, bring the memories flooding back.
When I was older and moved into a house of my own with a garden, I thought that I would plant a rose bush in her memory. I chose a spot in the small side garden so I could watch from my kitchen window as it grew. Eventually the bush bloomed, producing beautiful white flowers that brought me happiness each time I saw them.
The happiness in seeing the flowers was short lived. A few days after it was in full bloom, I walked into the kitchen, looked out of the window and the rose bush had been stripped bare of its flowers.
Our old Victorian house has a little side gate, and someone had come in and cut off all the flowers, killing the whole plant in the process. I’ve learnt my lesson and now I still have a rose plant – a miniature one that sits on the window ledge inside the kitchen.
A neighbour explained to me how her established roses were always being cut by people wandering into her garden and helping themselves. I still missed having flowers in my garden, so I bought a box of wildflower seeds from Home Bargains. I scattered these in my garden and loved the beautiful flowers that grew. Borage, cornflowers, daisies and yarrow amongst many others. Even several years later, they continue to bloom. The birds and the insects have helped to scatter them across the garden, so they are not just where they were planted. I love the fact that they thrive so close together.
I wonder how the Victorians would have interpreted the meaning of these flowers – the beauty of a wildflower that grows free. Brave, with the courage to grow in the harshest of environments. Independent, not bound by the conformity of the whole. I like the sound of that. In the words of the song, ‘you belong among the wildflowers.’
Janet Gardiner
Burning Bright 