In: Root » Self improvement » Life experience
I take a look at my desk planner and see that between Marketing plan update, 10.00–11.15 am and 2.00–4.00 pm Regional sales meeting, I have written, Visit Grandma! My grandmother has lived in a home for the last 11 years, and every three weeks I make time in my busy schedule to drop by and visit her, a pleasure we both enjoy very much. I always take along a little gift, which I select very carefully and according to the motto: variety is the spice of life! It’s mid- April, and everyone is looking forward eagerly to the start of spring, so I decide to pay a visit to a garden centre on my way to the home. A slate in front of the store reads, Get a Taste of Spring at the Seemüller Garden Centre – just what I’m looking for! I can’t see anything I like among the bouquets of spring flowers on display and decide to be creative and put together my own bouquet for Grandma. A young florist appears at my side and asks if she can help me. ‘I’d like a nice bunch of pretty spring flowers for my grandmother,’ I answer. As if someone had pressed a button, she starts to reel off the names of the various cut flowers displayed in vases. ‘Anemones combined with muscari armeniacum would be nice, or perhaps you would prefer hypericum with ranunculus asiaticus? The freesia refracta is also very pretty – they smell so good – perhaps with myosotis sylvestris?’ I can’t tell one flower from another. My eyes glaze over, and I am reduced to trying to follow her finger as she continues her recital of the Latin names, pointing first at one vase and then at another. ‘These centaurea last a very long time,’ I hear her say. ‘Mmmhh – I think a few myconos sylvester would be nice – perhaps with, um, these Cyrano de Ber... or whatever they’re called,’ I say, pointing in my turn at a vase of brightly coloured blooms. ‘You mean the myosotis sylvestris and the centaurea cyanus?’ I nod and, just to be on the safe side, ask her how much each flower costs, as she starts pulling them one after another out of their vases. At least I get the price in euros and not in some old defunct Latin currency. When I work out what this bouquet is likely to cost me (and I’ve only got as far as eight flowers), I can feel my pupils widen in shock. ‘Er, I think I’ll take a potted plant after all,’ I hear myself say. ‘That will be 18 euros,’ says ‘Flora’. ‘Shall I wrap it in paper or foil?’ I remember that my grandmother was always a conservationist and constantly warning us not to buy plastic carrier bags. ‘Paper, please,’ I say. So that’s what they call A Taste of Spring at the Seemüller Garden Centre. Well, at least I now know for sure that I’ve forgotten everything I ever learnt in Latin lessons at school. Amazingly good!Say it with flowers! And it’s much easier if they have a name. One garden centre realized this and now gives its potted plants male and female Christian names, printed on pretty labels attached to the plant with raffia. On the back of the label, they print instructions for the care of the plant. Another florist offers a special service. When a customer buys a plant costing more than 100 euros, they offer to visit the customer at home in two months’ time to check how the plant is doing. It’s also possible to place a ‘subscription’ with a florist to ensure that it’s always springtime in your home! Many stores will deliver ‘tailor-made’ bouquets once a week. Men often like to send their wives flowers in this way.
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