“Hello, love you, thinking of you, smile,” and “Be well” are some of the things flowers say.

Mother’s Day and flowers go together like music and lyrics.

Roses speak of love, and so do moms. Carnations stand for good health and happiness, and so do moms. Seeds and bulbs represent hope and big dreams. Mothers, too, nurture future success.

Geraniums and petunias are perfect citizens in the garden. Moms work tirelessly to ensure that their children will be perfect citizens in their world.

Karen Wils

Chocolates, perfume and clothes are nice for Mother’s Day gifts, but flowers and plants are often the best gifts.

Most women have a favorite house plant or garden flower. My mother loved her African violets. She had dozens of them in shades of lavender, deep purple, crimson, dusty rose and creamy white. She rotated them around the sunny windows in our house.

At any time of the year, you could almost always find a blooming violet in our house.

My mother has been gone for many years now, but a few of her gorgeous, fuzzy-leafed violets bloom at my house now!

My grandmother, Ella Stasewich, died years before I was born. From her humble house on Sheridan Road, a potted red geranium welcomed visitors, I am told.

Another plant that grew in the 1930’s by her fence was a mother-hen-and-chicks. When the family moved to the 1400 block of Sheridan, she took some chicks with her.

When my mother moved to the 1200 block of Sheridan, she also took some chicks with her. When I established a home of my own, you guessed it — a start of the hen-and-chicks were transplanted into my yard.

When I married my husband, one of the nice things that came from his bachelor pad was a lush green spider plant in a hanging basket. David had gotten the spider plant as just a little slip of a thing from the spider plant that thrived in his mother’s kitchen.

I remember the very first Mother’s Day gift I purchased with my own baby-sitting money. It was an orchid corsage. I rode my bike over to the Woolworth’s store across town and carefully drove home with the well wrapped flower.

I have a rosebush and a clematis growing in my yard that were Mother’s Day gifts from my kids. I recall many beautiful dandelion bouquets, too, and all the wonderful hand painted Mother’s Day projects they made for me in school, as well.

Flowers speak loudly. Roots run deep. Some flowers fade quickly, and other plants thrive for years, but the memories are always cherished forever.

Happy Mother’s Day blessings to all.