Decorating with flowers makes venues and places more lively and inviting. Everybody agrees on that. Flower bouquets are pleasing to the eye, and often make the occasion more special. But which type of flowers should you prefer: real or fake flowers?

Part 1: Fresh Flowers

Fresh flowers are usually the way to go, tradition-wise. Floral scents, colors, shapes and general esthetics all contribute to creating a great ambiance. There is a lot of different options, depending on the season.

Still, you should also consider that fresh flowers won’t last forever and probably cost more. Fresh flowers require constant care and maintenance. You should ask your florist which flowers are available locally and are in season, since flowers that are imported and/or aren’t in season tend to be more expensive. In this manner, you can have fresh, high-class floral arrangements without having to spend a fortune.

Part 2: Artificial Flowers

There are many types of artificial flowers to select from. The most popular right now are silk flowers. They are great because they require little maintenance, and are are very realistic & affordable. Aside from requiring only minimal cleaning, a lot of people claim they are unable to tell that they are fake without taking a really close look!

All of us purchase flowers for special occasions or simply to convey our feelings towards loved ones so that they know how much we care for them. However, due discretion and prudence must be exercised during selection of flowers, because they come in mind-boggling varieties and have been assigned certain meanings to fit certain occasions.

While selecting flowers, you have to strike a fine balance between what the recipient likes and what is suitable for the event. For instance, flowers with lively colours such as daisies or roses can be selected for joyful occasions, as they are in line with the mood of such events. But sad events require you to show your sympathy by presenting flowers like white carnations or gladiolus.

In case you are not very familiar with the recipient, you can go for the usual options without exercising your judgment and taking any risk in this respect. Here too, the occasion will decide which flower you can pick. For instance, seasonal flowers are an excellent choice for a wedding and a cluster of lilies of various colours is excellent for someone’s graduation.

Internationally, people like to express how they feel through actual words, gestures, or through presents that straightforwardly or indirectly convey their heartfelt messages. The proliferation of flower shops internationally implies the importance that people share with flowers in terms of presenting them as gifts or as a way to pass on messages that they like to convey in a more brilliant manner.

Just as music is stated as a world-wide language, flowers are also world-wide not merely because they are seen worldwide but also because they are considered to be what people ordinarily pass on to allies and loved ones to express themselves. Flowers are passed for various grounds and happenings: as birthday or anniversary gifts, conveyance of empathy, romantic tokens, among others.

Ordering flowers and bequeathing them as endowments can as well be very favourable and can also save someone’s face specially during desperate times of finding for an immediate gift after neglecting a loved one’s natal day or their anniversary. Giving flowers as gifts in such affairs can in effect cover up for the fact that the sender had forgotten and almost missed the appointment. Of course, it is a completely different account when the particular date in question is over. In such a case, flowers may instead be given as an apology to make up for the sender’s neglect.

Flowers have a universal appeal, and bouquets are common gift items given or received on events like weddings or a felicitation ceremony. However, a sad thing about bouquets is that the leaves and flowers dry out within a short time frame and then the bouquet looks ugly and crumpled. One solution is to gift artificial flowers that will never dry up, but they are a poor substitute for the fresh ones with their unique natural colour and sweet scent.

Though it is not possible to keep bouquets fresh for eternity, you can use some tips to make sure that their vibrancy is not lost too soon. Here are some tips that will make sure that your flowers stay fresh for a longer period.

Firstly, you should discuss with your florist about the life time of the flowers that are in your bouquet, as some flowers such as sunflower, have smaller periods of bloom than flowers like lilies and roses. You need to tell your florist to put only such flowers in the bunch that will not wither away too soon.

Since time immemorial, flowers have been used to send messages of joy, love, affection, and even discontent. In fact, they have been used as a coded language dating back to Victorian times, called floriography. For any occasion, flowers are the most effective and nearly fool-proof way of showing your emotions. Here are 10 reasons why you may want to send a flower arrangement to someone special to you:

1. Birthdays – A nice way of letting a birthday celebrator know that she is special is with a nice bouquet. Often, these bouquets are accompanied by balloons and fancy wrappers.

2. Graduation – Sending flowers for someone’s graduation is a fantastic way to acknowledge this person’s day of achievement.

3. Anniversary or Valentine’s Day – The traditional “dozen red roses” couldn’t be any more romantic on special days like this. Some florists even offer chocolates or teddy bears to be included in the arrangement.

4. Housewarming – A decorative & beautiful flower basket, or even a fruit and flower basket, will bring life & color to a new home.

The message conveyed by flowers is understood by all. In most places of the world, flowers have been used for ages to express human emotions like happiness, grief, love and regret. They are a lovely and effective means of expressing feelings and emotions without words. However, different flowers communicate different meanings. Each flower communicates a different meaning and you need to know that meaning before presenting a flower to someone.

Attributing meanings with various flowers is a well practised system known as floriography. It is a well known practice in European nations to think about the message of flowers and the event before gifting flowers of a certain kind.

Red roses are universal representations of eternal love, while pink ones stand for friendship and white ones symbolize purity. You can make up with an estranged friend by gifting him white tulips, as tulips stand for forgiveness. Lilies when gifted are usually associated with royalty, festivity, excitement and zeal. You can wish your sick friend a fast recovery by presenting him or her a bunch of Yarrow, while a bouquet of Azalea can be given to a friend to wish him luck on his new venture. Flowers can convey negative connotations as well. A case in point is a bouquet of lavender blossoms, which generally shows mistrust.

Gifting flowers or bouquets is perhaps the best way to express one’s feelings. Flowers and bouquets have acted as great gifts for birthdays and anniversaries, and are also helpful in making personal gestures like communicating heartiest congratulations, expressing apologies or simply making someone happy.

Some people think that this custom began way back during ancient times with archaeologists finding proof of its existence at ancient sites. Traditional Greek mythology, Chinese folklore and history concerning the Romans and Egyptians all display that flowers had a very important role to play in their culture. In these civilizations, it was thought that feelings could find their most appropriate expression through the giving of flowers. In fact, in ancient Greek legends, some flowers have even been bestowed with a divine status.

This tradition passed on to the Middle Ages, and France and England played important roles in keeping it alive. The modern tradition of assigning a meaning to each flower is believed to have been imported to Europe after the French and the British experienced it in Turkey.

Since historical times, flowers have been used as a gesture of kindness. We usually present them to those we care for. We give flowers to let them know how special they are, to show admiration, to celebrate occasions, or even to sympathize. What we don’t know is that giving certain kinds of flowers, and even their colors, actually have significances of their own.

The Language Of Flowers

During medieval & Renaissance times, flowers were often given moral meanings. This can be widely seen in art where saints are often portrayed with flowers that represent or symbolize their virtues. Liana DeGirolami Cheney stated in an edition of Sixteenth Century Journal that “some of the Christian symbols for Virginity or Chastity are the white rose, the myrtle, a vessel or vase, the lily, and the unicorn.”

During the Victorian era, flowers were used initially to create or add emotion. The language of flowers, often referred to as floriography, began being used as a discreet form of communication. In the 18th century, sending cyphered messages using flowers became popular. Based on Persian Salaam, a Turkish secret language of flowers, a coded bouquet was sent to declare feelings of attraction, even love.

Bouquet is a French term meaning a certain arrangement of flowers. It involves arrangement of flower clusters in varied ways, after which they can then be finely wrapped and presented as gift items for particular occasions.

Making of bouquets has been often regarded as an art form that needs loads of patience and perseverance to learn and improvise. Often known as floristry, bouquet making involves clustering leaves, stems, flowers etc in unique patterns.

The first step in bouquet making is that of choosing every single flower which can go into making the bouquet and then trimming them to the correct length. This step is followed by removing the dried leaves and then arranging the flowers neatly and lastly wrapping them up.

Each florist has his own unique design, which is dependant on the occasions for which the bouquets are being prepared. Other aspects which determine the design of a particular bouquet are the availability of flowers in that particular season and the desired cost of the bouquet.

It is also quite important to note that different cultures ascribe different meanings to a flower as the same flowers can symbolize different things in different cultures. Therefore, a bouquet must be selected sensibly if you wish to present it to someone who hails from another culture.

Flowers were the first ornaments, long before jewellery came in vogue. Through their striking colours and scent, they have enabled people to enhance their attractiveness since ancient times. Most of the civilizations have witnessed both females and males using flowers in their hair or as garlands to wear around their neck.

Every flower has its own exclusive fragrance. Colour, appearance and scent are the three qualities that have determined the different feelings that different flowers evoke in humans, and this in turn has determined which flower would fit which occasion. Perfume manufacturers have extracted different floral fragrances and have trapped them in bottles down the ages, and the sheer diversity of these fragrances available in nature has helped them to create an unlimited variety of perfumes. However, now the demand for flowers in the perfume industry is somewhat waning as artificial compounds have started substituting them.

The importance of flowers’ scent is not limited to manufacturing perfumes. In fact the whole beauty of giving flowers to people is based on their fragrance along with how they look. Fragrance of flowers can lift the drooping spirits of an individual and radically alter the whole ambience of a place. To an experienced florist, the true quality of good bouquets is that they should appeal to both the eyes and the sense of smell of the recipient. Flowers are widely used in ritual events as well to make the entire venue fragrant.