A Year of Flowers: Daisy

Hey there, flower child! It’s time for this month’s installment of our “A Year of Flowers” mini-series with Poppy + Mint Floral Company! April’s editorial is all about the happy daisy: Meg Ryan’s bouquet of choice in “You’ve Got Mail” and the anti-war movement’s symbol of peace and love in the 60s.

Daisies are truly delightful flowers symbolizing innocence, purity, and peace. As the birth flower for April, they are a fresh standard for the spring season. If you look closely at a daisy, you’ll see the center is comprised of many tiny individual flowers called ‘florets’. This center inflorescence is surrounded by one or two rows of petals fanning outward in colors like white, shades of red, yellow, or orange. Daisies love the sun and don’t want to miss any of it, so they open at dawn–no coffee necessary! They remain open up until dusk, in time for their beauty sleep. It is for this reason their name was derived from the Anglo Saxon words meaning “day’s eye.”

The girls at Poppy + Mint Floral designed this shoot around the sweet + hopeful flower, pulling influences from it’s original meaning, romantic wish fulfillment, and its unexpected powerful symbolism.

Sonia Savio Photography captured the lovely photos, putting us all in a springtime mood here at GWS! Let’s have a look:

We’re loving these sweet pastels for a spring soiree!

Throughout their history daisies have represented positive and hopeful things, along with an appreciation for simplicity and modesty.

With a look reminiscent of the sun, it’s no wonder that daisies tend to add a bit of warmth +carefree nostalgia to gatherings.

Daisies bring to mind memories of picking flowers as children, braiding flower crowns, and setting fresh bouquets on the kitchen table. The best moments!

“He loves me, he loves me not,” is the idiomatic expression that comes from the French, effleuiller la marguerite, meaning, “to remove petals from the daisy.” Whether the wistful lament of love lost or the wistful pleasure of love secured, the daisy held the key!

In the 1960s daisies became a popular representation of peace. The peace symbol was designed by British artist Gerald Holtom in 1958 during the British nuclear disarmament movement. In the 1960s, counter culture in the United States adopted this symbol and dressed it in flowers and bold colors. It dominated the anti-war effort, bringing color–and flowers–to Holtom’s original black and white design.

American beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s notion to use masses of flowers in anti-war protests led to the coined phrase, “flower power,” and daisies were just the thing. Flower children became synonymous with “hippie” and used floral themes to demonstrate the peace and love brought about by this movement.

Thank you to Poppy + Mint Floral Company for sharing yet another creative floral inspiration! Catch up on all the “A Year of Flowers” editorials and stay tuned for a new one next month!

photography: Sonia Savio Photography // venue name: Bee Nice Music, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA // event design: Poppy + Mint Floral Company // planning: Poppy + Mint Floral Company // florals: Poppy + Mint Floral Company // makeup artist: Paige Jeansonne // models: Mallorie Kidder