The Flowers of Mother’s Day

Walk the garden with me, and I’ll show you the flowers of Mother’s Day.

Lily of the Valley

We’ll start with Lily of the Valley, Convallaria majalis.

Some people consider it an invasive, spreading plant; others love it as shade-loving ground cover with a sweet-scented flower. I love it because we picked the flowers at my grandma’s house in the spring, generally around Mother’s Day, the second Sunday of May. I got my start of Lily of the Valley, just a few pips as they are called, from my aunt, who presumably got them from grandma.

Woodland Violets

We’ll move right along to woodland violets, Viola soraria. I have them self-sowing all over the place, including the lawn. There are some who disparage wild violets as a weed. I don’t understand those people.

I got my violets from my sister’s garden, which used to be my dad’s garden. We dug these violets up from the woods decades ago just for my mom. I love having them.

Lilacs

Who doesn’t love a lovely lilac blooming on Mother’s Day? I took this picture of these old-fashioned lilacs, Syringa vulgaris, because these are probably the ones we planted for my mom decades ago when she was still living.

Yesterday, my sister and I decided they need a good whacking back to rejuvenate them. We’ll do that after they’ve flowered. If you want to know more about lilacs, I wrote two articles for Family Handyman that are online now. This one, and this other one.

Dogwoods

The dogwoods—including this one which is Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Princess’—have been blooming for a few weeks now but we’ll still include it on the list for Mother’s Day, because it is a lovely flowering tree, and it blooms early in May.

Some people talk about “dogwood winter” which happens when the weather turns chilly when the dogwoods are blooming. I hope we don’t have a dogwood winter this year. Everything looks lovely and the extended forecast calls for nothing close to frost. That will make all the moms out buying plants and getting plants as gifts today happy. I know it makes me happy.

Granny’s Bonnet

We’ll wrap up this walk through the garden to see the flowers of Mother’s Day, with a little columbine I like to call Granny’s Bonnet, Aquilegia vulgaris.

These are not native columbine, they are European. Over the years, I’ve sown seeds for ‘Tower Blue’, ‘Tower Pink’, and ‘Black Barlow’.

I often cut a few blooms to put in a vase indoors, but they don’t last but a day or so, just long enough to enjoy for one meal. Is that worth it, you ask? It is. Just as it is worth serving food that lasts for only one meal.

And now, the grass is green, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the garden, as I like to say, is all new again. So this concludes our walk through the garden to see the flowers of Mother’s Day, at least the flowers this year. I hope you enjoyed it!