Are we superstitious about the Ides of March? Completely. Both our grandmothers died March 15, so we will be treading, driving, eating and (maybe) speaking with caution Monday, which happens to be the new moon, too.

On this day Julius Caesar was ambushed by members of the Roman Senate, who stabbed him to death in the Theater of Pompey, 44 B.C. His funeral took place five days later.  An “improvised funeral pyre was made of furniture and other things at hand, and Caesar’s body burned in the middle of the Forum,” at a spot later dedicated to the Temple of Divus Julius.

As recently as 2005, the general, diarist and dictator was still remembered with flowers in the ancient Forum on the Ides of March. Mary Harrsch, who was visiting Rome that spring, took purple roses of tribute. She wrote, “When we arrived, we found some beautiful flowers already there, and two elderly gentlemen paying their respects. They kindly climbed over the barrier and laid our bouquet on top of the altar. As they left, one saluted, and with tears in his eyes, said, ‘Ave, Caesar!’” 

We imagine there will be some observances this year as well. (Roman readers, please let us know.)

Laurel wreath laid in 1975 A.D. where Julius Caesar’s funeral took place, 44 BC, in the Roman Forum.
Photo: Paula Chabot

A heavy-hitter if ever there was one, Caesar is not often associated with flowers. He is said also to have “refused the diadem,” a regal emblem, “saying Jupiter alone is king of the Romans.” But the Hellenic victory emblem – the laurel crown—apparently was much to his liking, as there are many images of him, in statuary and on coins, wearing the laurel wreath.

So we think he would have been especially pleased with this tribute, photographed by Paula Chabot in 1975: a grand laurel wreath “commemorating Rome’s 2728th birthday” at the site of Caesar’s obsequies.

The winged candies come in a paper bag that’s been “impregnated” with “dozens” of flower seeds. Once Mother has eaten her chocolates, she can bury the whole bag in the garden or scissor it up, putting bits in pots. Fittingly, the wrapper is seeded with candytuft (Iberis umbellata ‘Rose Cardinal’), which we understand is a summer-blooming annual in England and a favorite with butterflies (spring blooming white candytuft was a favorite of ours in Kentucky).

It’ll be interesting to see whether this two-fer marketing strategy succeeds. A Marks and Spencer spokesperson told the Daily Mail that if the seedy promotion works, the company will package other products with flower seed, too.

How about peppermints wrapped with striped dianthus seed, butterscotch with celandine poppies…?

Candytuft (Iberis umbellata ‘Rose Cardinal’)
Photo: Aggie Horticulture

We realize that many people consider flowers a guilty pleasure. Jack Goody’s fascinating study The Culture of Flowers considers a long history of “deliberate rejection.”

But at a flower show? Yes. Political correctness, an ethos of “green” (but apparently no other colors), late-minimalism, conceptualism, and what we shall call “bellephobia” have conspired against blossoms at the Ellerslie Flower Show. The gold medal winner of New Zealand’s premier floral exhibition is a display of fungus: “a lighting and sound extravaganza illustrating how nature recycles.”

Christchurch Botanic Gardens was awarded the Supreme Award for its entry called “Pictures of Life and Death.” We understand that Jeremy Hawker, the Botanic Gardens’ operations manager, received his inspiration “partly from his mouldy coffee cup.” Juliet Speedy reports: “Visitors to the garden enter through a ‘glow-worm’ cave” and first see the display through an 8 ft. waterfall.

Jeremy Hawker of Christchurch Botanic Gardens was inspired by a dirty coffee cup
Photo: Kirk Hargreaves, for The Press

“An array of fungi (some picked in the wild last weekend), lichen, moss, liverwort and ferns carpet the floor of the exhibit, which has a six-minute cycle of changing lights and sounds.” Of note: this award was bestowed in the Starlight Marquee division, for entries that feature “how lighting can extend enjoyment of a garden after dark.”

Here in the U.S., bellephobia has been evident at the Philadelphia Flower Show, too. The big winner there was MODA Botanica’s entry, featuring floral installations inside graffiti-laden industrial containers.
MODA’s blossoms were displayed off-kilter and encased within metallic and hyper-urban cocoons, but they were in fact flowers and—dare we say it?—pretty.

New Zealand appears to be on the cutting edge of garden design, and that edge is mossy and decomposing.

After a hotter than usual, drier than usual summer (putting it mildly), and a wetter than usual, colder than usual (again understating it) winter, who knows what this spring will turn out to be? Our confusion is compounded in that many of the plants here went in just 14 months ago, so we don’t really know their habits, even under normal conditions.

Stan Powers, gardening magus, moved our few grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum, we think) and set our expectations low for this year’s bloom – and that was before all the weather drama. But we do, in fact, have several in bloom now. People say they’re too puny to enjoy except in “a large drift,” and of course large drifts of them would be dandy, but we’re enjoying our scattered five or six clumps and can see them twinkling like sapphires even from the curb.

Neighbor Beverly Bajema sent us this heavenly close-up of a muscari blooming outside her dance studio a few blocks away. Beverly has a way with parsley, night blooming cereus, and much more. Thank you, dear and talented birthday-mate.

Mo’Nique looked the part of a winner last night, with three lovely white gardenias knotted onto her up-do. The actress, who won the Oscar for her harrowing “supporting” role in the movie Precious,  paid tribute to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to be nominated for, and win, an Academy Award. Dressed in royal blue as McDaniel had been 70 years before, Mo’Nique explained, “This is the flower Hattie McDaniel wore when she accepted her Oscar. So for you, Miss Hattie McDaniel, it’s about time the world feels you all over them.”

Actually, it was McDaniel who, gloriously, felt flowers all over herself on February 29, 1940, as she won the Oscar for her portrayal of “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind. You can see and hear her acceptance speech. Or just delight in the photo below, her casque of gardenias AND the major floral stole over her right shoulder.

Congratulations, Mo’Nique. And next time, we hope you spring for the whole fragrant costume.

Hattie McDaniel won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in Gone with the Wind, February 29, 1940. Fay Bainter, right, presented the award.
Photo: via Afrocity Blog

What made us cave in to her latest publicity stunt was its classic use of flowers: simultaneously to draw attention and to mask. LG’s oversized black rose (see Waylon Jennings for the symbolism on that one) obscured not only her face but her vision. So much so that, despite her costume’s edginess,it required a very ordinary looking and patient bald fellow to get her safely down a few steps and into a cab.

Who says the age of gallantry—or the culture of flowers—is dead?

Lady Gaga and an unnamed escort set out for the
MAV Viva Glam Launch Monday in London