To think of cake-top flowers is to picture perfectly piped symmetry: nature neatened. This was not Natasja Sadi’s project, however, when she set about sculpting her own. Instead, the Dutch bridal-wear designer sought to capture her countless cultivars as truthfully as possible

Emerging in the depths of winter, the mournful snowdrop has long been banded with death, yet galanthophiles, lovers of the species, embrace its emergence as the first glimpse of lighter times ahead

Polly Nicholson’s blooms and Simon Pettet’s delftware prove a match made in heaven. Or rather east London and Wiltshire…

These peculiarly animated blooms, both remedial and domestic, have become surprisingly well rooted in the artistic imagination – with Lucian Freud and Daphne du Maurier among those entranced by their bounded wildness. Our floral historian tames them into prose

Pulled from between the leaves of the art history annals, we discover symbolism and inspiration in this seasonal bloom

After a trip to a botanical museum in Amsterdam, Polly Nicholson was inspired to cultivate historic tulip species whose presences were once tantamount to winning the lottery 

Is there a secret language hidden in 17th- and 18th-century Dutch still-life flower paintings? Although mostly rejected by modern scholarship, this idea is so beguiling that it refuses to go away… From the symbolic to the mundane, double meanings abound in these bouquets

Particularly in Japanese culture, the tendril-like blossoms of this unique flower have woven a tangled web of art-historical meaning. Never fear: our resident bud buff is here to give you a potted history