April Birth Flower:
Daisy and Sweet Pea

April Birth Flower: Daisy

Symbolism: Innocence, Childhood, Trustworthiness, New life

Zodiac Signs: Aries & Taurus

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.
- Robert Burns, "To a Mountain Daisy"

We start our look into the birth flowers of April with the lovely daisy. Daisies are members of the Aster family (see September’s birth flower page for more info on Asters). This flower family includes the likes of dandelions, artichokes and sunflowers, so quite a mix! Although they originate in Europe and Asia, daisies can now be found in every part of the world except Antarctica.

A Tasty Snack

The leaves of daisies can be eaten raw and make a healthy addition to any salad or sandwich. They can also be cooked, alothough its best to stick to eating only the young leaves and the older they get the more bitter they will taste. Daisy flowers can also be eaten raw and used in tea, many herbalists recommend daisy extract to soothe coughs and sore throats. So next time you're out wandering in the countryside, if you start to feel a bit peckish why not nibble on some daisies?!

Get Crafty!

On top of being snack-able, daisies are also great for flowery crafts! Try pressing them inside a book to make a beautiful flower collage, or grab a hammer and some of your favourite blooms and try pounding them into a piece of fabric to create a beautiful tablecloth. This is a unique way to preserve their beauty forever (just remember not to wash the fabric as the colours will wash out!)

Myths and Folklore

In medieval Europe there was a belief that the tips of daisy petals were pink because of the Virgin Mary once pricked her fingers while out picking daisies for Jesus. While in Norse Mythology, daisies are the favourite flower of Freya, the goddess of love. Through this association, the daisy is seen to symbolise love and new life and is often given as a gift to parents to celebrate their newborn.

Snoozing Blooms

Daisy petals close up at night and open in the morning, this is thought to be where their English name came from as they were like the “Day’s Eye”.

He loves me… he loves me not

The folk practice of plucking daisies petals to predict the future and determine whether a love is true or not can be found in many countries, even making an appearance in the play Faust by Goethe. There are many other folk legends surrounding daisies, one particularly wacky belief says that any unmarried person should go to a meadow full of daisies, shut their eyes, and grab a handful of flowers. The number of daisies they find in their hand when they open their eyes will be equal to the number of years before they get married!

April Birth Flower: Sweet Pea

Symbolism: Creativity, Resilience, Beauty

Zodiac Signs: Aries & Taurus

Out of all the flowers I cover in these pages, I think the smell of sweet peas has to be my favourite, its so evocative of early summer and it really is the perfect birth flower for the month of April!

Sweet peas are native to Southern Italy, Sicily, Cyprus and Crete. In the 1600s, a Sicilian monk sent the first sweet pea seeds to Britain, however it wasn’t until a few hundred years later in the Victorian period that they became world famous.

Scottish horticulturalist Henry Eckford is credited with creating the sweet pea as we know it today. Eckford started cross breading sweet peas to produce different varieties and created a “floral sensation” in late Victorian Britain, sweet peas became the most fashionable flower around - everyone wanted them growing in their garden! While the obsession may have subsided somewhat, sweet peas are still a firm favourite in cottage gardens the world over, they are easy to grow and so pretty.

I'll be Back!

Sweet peas are climbing plants, they have little tendrils on their stems that wrap around supports like bamboo canes or garden trellises or even other plants to help them climb. Sweet peas are very easy to grow as long as you have a bit of sunshine. One of the nicest things about growing sweet peas is the more you pick them the more they grow, so you don’t have to feel bad about picking them!

Genetic Breakthroughs

The scientist known as the "Father of Modern Genetics”, Gregor Mendel, studied different pea plants in his research into genetics. He bred peas with different characteristics, such as different petal colours, heights and seed shapes. Mendel discovered that when he crossed green peas and yellow peas their offspring always produced yellow seeds. However, in the next generation, the green peas reappeared. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms "recessive" and "dominant" in reference to certain gene traits.

Birth Flower Tattoo Ideas: Daisies

Birth Flower Tattoo Ideas: Sweet Peas