Flower For The Princess
The Princess Mother had a passion for flowers. It was a defining characteristic that dominated her life from her youth through to her later years. This love of flowers reflected a sensitivity and a concern for nature that was not just enjoyment of its aesthetic qualities, but included the need to care and nurture them into full bloom with the same kind of attention and concern that she gave to her role as mother, and every other project in her lifetime.
| “ | Plants are like people. This particular zinnia I didn’t grow from a seed, but bought a sapling from a nursery, and it is now strong and healthy. Why is that? Because the nursery owner knew how to choose a good seed, and the right soil. He knew how to nurse the sapling, which I couldn’t have done as he did. When I bought it back, I had to attend to it, fertilize it constantly because the soil here is not so fertile. I have to constantly water the plant, turn the soil, pull the weeds and pick the dead leaves. People are like that; if he comes from a good breed, the child will be healthy and intelligent. If the parents provide constant nurturing, picking out the defective bits and adding fertilizer, the child will grow up and prosper like these zinnias | ” |
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—Princess Srinagarindra |
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Her technique for pressing flowers was to put them between sheets of newsprint and tissue paper and toilet rolls, and cover them with some heavy books. She would also write the common and scientific names of the flowers, and the date, on the newsprint.
This particular activity was not simply for pleasure and decorative purposes. As most of her other activities, it became an educational process, not only for herself but also for others. She collected the pressed flowers into an album, indicating the names in both French and Latin and the documented the location where they were picked, the altitude and the date.
Read more about this topic: Srinagarindra
Famous quotes containing the words flower and/or princess:
“A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 14:1.
“He is blowing on light
each time for the first time.
His fingers cover the mouths of all the sopranos,
each a princess in an exact position.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)