What the Queen’s Funeral Flowers Said About the Plants Enshrined in Our Memories

The Queen's funeral flowers contained many humble and familiar garden plants that had special meaning to her.

Getty Images

The Queen’s funeral flowers contained many humble and familiar garden plants that had special meaning to her.

Julia Atkinson-Dunn is the writer and creative behind Studio Home.

Even though I didn’t stay up to watch the Funeral of the Queenit wasn’t long before I heard the chatter about the beautiful flowers that adorned her coffin.

To gardeners, her funeral wreath was clearly more than just decorative, depicting many modest and familiar garden plants that would not normally be used on occasions of such pomp.

There were twisting branches of rosemary, a symbol of memory, and English oak, a symbol of strength.

READ MORE:
* How to plan and plant now for a beautiful spring garden
* A gardener tried to recreate her urban garden in the countryside. It failed – miraculous
* Embrace the shakiness of your home-grown flowers

Carved from the gardens of Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Highgrove were roses, sedum, dahlias, scab, pelargoniums and hydrangeas. Perhaps most sentimental was the addition of myrtle, grown from a twig of the same plant used in… Queen Elizabeth’s Bridal Bouquet when she married Prince Philip in 1947.

The inclusion of the myrtle hurt me and made me think about how plants can anchor themselves in our memories and stories as well as places and material objects.

In my own family, my sister and I continue the tradition of incorporating pieces of homegrown blue tweedia (Oxypetalum coeruleum) into our bridal bouquets.

This started with our great-grandmother, before it trickled down to us through the generations. It made me feel connected to my heritage, especially to my grandmother, who died when my mother was only in her early twenties.

I’m sure Mom felt this bond with her too when she put little tweedia in her bouquet a few years later.

Julia Atkinson-Dunn and her sister have continued the tradition of incorporating blue tweedia into their bridal bouquets.

Charlotte Sowman

Julia Atkinson-Dunn and her sister have continued the tradition of incorporating blue tweedia into their bridal bouquets.

Recently, a small group of us accompanied my gardening mentor, Penny Zino, to her Wynyard petting zoo in North Canterbury for the specific purpose of viewing the mature stand of native plants curated by her late mother, Brownie Davison. Now in the care of her brother and sister-in-law Tim and Lou Davison, we crept up the edges and explored the undergrowth, finding a thread of Brownie in it.

In the middle was a fantastic stand of the native Clematis paniculata. Stretched out over and around the surrounding trees, the starry white flowers glowed in the afternoon sun. This plant was an absolute favorite of Penny’s mother and the subject of many of her paintings.

Her passion for this clematis continued to win the hearts of her family, with Lou wove it through her hair for her own wedding day and Penny grew it in her own garden in memory of her mother.

Another good gardening friend of mine, Jenny Cooper, shared how she recently distributed some plants to send to her daughter on the Kapiti Coast. This included a blue hosta that had belonged to her mother.

Clematis paniculata, at Wynyard in Hurunui, was a favorite of Penny Zino's mother, Brownie Davison.

Julia Atkinson-Dunn

Clematis paniculata, at Wynyard in Hurunui, was a favorite of Penny Zino’s mother, Brownie Davison.

“My mother passed away 10 years ago and I know my daughter will cherish that this plant is mine even if I am gone,” Jenny said. She’s right to suggest that this humble hosta has become a meaningful, living heirloom.

Jenny also put forward the idea that plants contain memories. The saxifrage she grows was given to her by an elderly woman she helped after the Christchurch earthquakes. For Jenny, that plant is inextricably linked to her and that life-changing event.

Plants can bear witness to our lives and stopping to pay attention to who they are feels very comforting to me. I was really thrilled when I moved into my first home five years ago and discovered a Japanese maple tucked away at the end of the yard. It was almost an exact replica of the one that grew outside the kitchen door at my childhood home near Hanmer Springs.

Even now I look at its beautiful multi-stemmed form and remember the hot summers when we writhed through its limbs. I feel compelled to introduce grape hyacinths into the soil nearby as a direct reflection of the plantings my mother did over 40 years ago.

Plants hold memories for us - both good and bad.

Julia Atkinson-Dunn

Plants hold memories for us – both good and bad.

While it may be the most sentimental among us (my hand shoots up!) to attach such human emotion to plants, they are certainly bridges to our past that may be easier to handle than a huge inherited dresser.

Now might be the right time to introduce a new botanical tradition into your own family story.

You can join Julia Atkinson-Dunn at @studiohomegardening or at studiohome.co.nz