Marieke Merriweather's Mysterious Delphiniums

Marieke Merriweather's Mysterious Delphiniums: Object Post 112

Source? Marieke and Dennis grew them at Marieke’s Klein Nederlanden

Significance? The reason for these was never given

Fate? They were harvested for a specific purpose

Author’s inspiration? I heard about this use for delphiniums and had to include it

“That’s right. Fields and fields of flowers. A rainbow of them. They grow delphiniums too. You’ll never guess why.”

Ryl shrugged. Now it seemed she was the one who wanted to keep on track. “When would you come here to stay, then?”

Ryl Skipton and Tom Merriweather were in love. They wanted to be together for the rest of their lives, but there were problems. Tom lived in Tasmania, where he was studying architecture part time while working in his father’s firm. Ryl was still at school. They planned to live together as soon as Ryl turned eighteen or, in fay parlance, had enough years to be considered independent. Until then, they got by on a kissing ring commitment and met as often as they could. As the someday became not long now, they discussed logistics. Tom explained what he planned to do in October, which was to help out at his uncle and aunt’s tulip farm. He hoped Ryl would be intrigued, but she seemed more focussed on their future. As he discovered later she had been paying attention, but for now the answer to the delphinium mystery went unrevealed.

So, why did Marieke and Dennis grow delphiniums (aka larkspur), those tall, showy, blue, pink and white relatives of the common buttercup? Evidently the petals keep their colour when dried, making them an attractive eco-friendly alternative to confetti. They’re poisonous, like all members of this floral family, but who eats confetti anyway?

       

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!