The Language of Love from Flowercard

At Flowercard we’re fascinated by the language of flowers, known as Florigraphy. It truly took off in Victorian England when artists and writers created floral dictionaries to illustrate the meaning and symbolism around popular blooms.

Around the same time, flowers began to feature on greetings cards. Giving fresh flower posies became a way of expressing devotion on special days like St Valentine’s Day which the Pope declared a Christian feast in 496.

Myth has it that the Valentine we remember on 14th February, was a young priest who performed weddings in secret for soliders banned from marriage by Claudius. The emperor wanted fighters not lovers for his strong batchelor army!

Love really became associated with St Valentine thanks to the writings of Chaucer in 14th century. By 1800s the tradition of sending handmade Valentine’s cards had become widespread with ribbons and lace, cupids and birds featuring on designs.  The Victorians were also the first to send red roses for passionate romantic love.

At Flowercard, we see love expressed every day by our customers who add words of thanks, friendship and kindness to personalise our floral cards and gifts to loved ones. Those incredibly personal messages inspired us last year to create a few preprinted poems in our online Poetry Collection and a whole new range of Valentine’s gifts including the iconic dozen red roses to pop through the letterbox in 2017.