Human Flower Project
Najaf, IRAQ
Austin, Texas USA
Chichen Itza, MEXICO
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Mighty Floozy: Rose of Sharon
Korea’s beloved national flower gets no respect in many parts of the U.S. Do you chalk it up to aesthetics, history or character?
Korean postage stamp of the national flower Mugunghwa, issued in 1993
Photo: Koreastamp
Though landscape designers work out of doors, they’re privy to their clients’ interior lives. One customer fantasizes a Roman empire on a quarter acre; another lives in terror of pink.
Years ago, we asked our landscape designing friend Mac Reid what his work as botanical confessor had taught him about flower snobbery, and Mac allowed that, yes, around Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky, there was one definite plant non grata: the Rose of Sharon. (Hibiscus Syriacus L. ).
Too easy to grow? Too blowsy? Too, dare we say it—pink?
Those very qualities that made Rose of Sharon distasteful to Kentuckians strike people quite differently on the other side of the world. Mugunghwa (Rose of Sharon) is revered in South Korea, the national flower. And it will be in special evidence there today. Not only is this bloom season for mugunghwa, August 15 is a national holiday twice over, so the Korean emblem has sprung up all over Seoul.