Lilies

Tomorrow, May 1, would be a lovely day to be in France. The French are celebrating La Fete du Muguet, the festival of the lily of the valley. Pop-up shops will be dotting the streets selling sprigs and bouquets of these sweet scented little bells. The flowers are given to friends, family and neighbors as a gesture of “affection and good luck.” La Fete du Muguet coincides with Labor Day in France. Everyone has the day off to celebrate spring, love and social justice.

The tradition of giving lilies as a gift goes back to May 1, 1560. King Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de Medici, were walking in the garden of a knight, Louis de Girard de Maisonforte, when the knight picked a bouquet of lily of the valley and presented it to the king. Charmed by the gesture, the king decided to give these flowers to all the ladies in his court on May 1, saying, “Let it be so every year.”

The custom was reinforced in 1900 when the French couturiers gave nosegays of the flowers to their craftspeople (called “little hands”) and customers. Christian Dior so loved the flower that he made it the emblem of his fashion house.

My own love of the flower goes back to my early childhood. For some reason, my mother had given up on gardening and let our backyard run wild. It was a child’s paradise. Gigantic lilac bushes to hide under, enormous wild rose bushes, towering hollyhocks and lily of the valley in profusion. My mother showed me how to pick the lilies to make a bouquet…hold firmly on the stem and pull straight up. Zip! Out they came like a rocket, no roots whatsoever. My mother may not have liked gardening, but she loved fresh flowers in our home. I was free to pull all the lilies I wanted.

All these many decades later, I live surrounded by the native flowers and grasses we have planted. But about ten years ago, I was walking in the far end of our acre and discovered a huge swath of lily of the valley. They found us, and I couldn’t be more delighted.

Note: The lily of the valley is not in the lily family. The plant is a rhizomatous perennial of the Asparagaceae (asparagus) family. It is native to Eurasia.

4