A big day is coming up for those who are Scottish, or those who are only for one day: Robbie Burns Day is on January 25, and wherever there are Scottish descendants there will be celebrations on Robbie Burns Day.
Robbie Burns was born on Jan. 25, 1759. He wrote poems and songs, and because he wrote in Standard English, much of his work was appreciated far beyond the highlands of Scotland. While he is best known for his poems about love and romance, (and for his exuberant enthusiasm for 鈥渁 wee dram鈥� and the ladies!), his work often reflected about social and political issues of the day, making him a hero for the working man in many cultures.
Because some of his poems were horticultural in nature (鈥淎 Red, Red Rose鈥� and 鈥淭o A Mountain Daisy鈥�) I wondered if there were any plants associated with Robbie Burns Day. And guess what, there were! I did some homework and this is what I found. Just for fun, if we wanted to create a flower arrangement for our own Robbie Burns celebration, we could include one, some, or all of these flowers. If we want to go with live flowers, the florist can help us find suitable alternatives to some of these plants. Or we could go with a mixture of silk and dried materials.聽 There are no rules, just enjoy the process!
Of course, the number one plant associated with Robbie Burns Day is the thistle, the national flower of Scotland. We could substitute a small artichoke (from the produce section of the grocery store!), dried eryngium, artichoke or even love-in-a-mist. Even blooms like bachelor buttons would have that prickly 鈥渢histle鈥� look.
Still in the purple tones, heather is the beautiful wild plant that transforms Scottish landscape into clouds of magical mauve at certain times of the year. Even one small stem of this plant will add a wee bit of the Highlands to our arrangement.
Robbie compared love to a red, red rose, so roses would be a perfect component to the arrangement. Even one would add a bright pop of color and historical meaning.聽 We could go one step further and include a white rose: back in the day, white roses were planted by those who supported Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Stewarts.
A Burns poem also praises the daisy: small white mums would work just fine. And of course we could add a small piece of Scotch pine for greenery in our arrangement. To finish off our project, we could use a tartan scarf or ribbon around the vase, and we鈥檇 have an arrangement that would make Robbie smile!
Here鈥檚 an interesting little factoid: did you know that there is a Saskatchewan tartan?聽 We鈥檝e all heard about clan tartans for Scottish families, but our own dear province has a tartan all its own. In 1961, Mrs. Frank Bastedo, wife of the former Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Frank Bastedo, created the striking tartan for our province based on colors that had meaning for Saskatchewan. The main color is a golden yellow, representing wheat, rapeseed and sunflowers. There is also red for our prairie lily, brown for the summerfallow, white for the winter snows, black to represent coal and oil, and green for the forests. There is also a Canadian tartan known as the 鈥渕aple leaf tartan鈥�, designed in 1964 by David Weiser; a beautiful pattern in muted tones of green, gold, red, and brown to represent the changing colors of the maple leaf during the seasons. Note the importance of plants in the designs!
鈥淪lainte mhath!鈥� To your health! Have a great week!聽
