Did you know that giving flowers and flower delivery has a long and interesting history? Ready Flowers Australia reports that while we can't know for sure, many are convinced that the tradition of giving flowers goes back even as far as prehistoric times. Evidence of the very early recognition by humans of the power and beauty of giving gifts of flowers exists, as archeologists have found flower remnants in some very, very old grave sites. (Don't worry, at Ready Flowers Australia we use only the freshest flowers ? nothing prehistoric!)

During the early beginning of recorded history we again have evidence of flower giving, for example in Egyptian hieroglyphics, in very early Chinese writings, and also in the Ancient mythology of the Greek and Roman civilisations. (Whether there was any flower delivery in these days is something that Ready Flowers Australia don't know ? those chariots would probably have shaken a nice arrangement of flowers into something resembling a salad.)

Ancient history aside, perhaps the real beginning of flower giving as we know it today was in the Middle Ages, where flowers where given as tokens of affection by lovers. In a conservative society, Ready Flowers Australia has heard that the particular flowers in the flower delivery could act as a secret message from the giver to the recipient. Flower delivery as an early form of the text message, then, with perhaps a little more subtlety and a lot more beauty!

Also in the Middle Ages came the custom of giving flowers in the theatre. There arose a belief that flowers on the stage (whether or not the result of a flower delivery gone wrong) were bad luck, and that only the giving of flowers to the leading lady (who Ready Flowers Australia thinks could well have in fact been a man) would bring good luck rather than bad to the production.

Then in the 1700s, the idea of flowers-as-message was developed further in Sweden, where a king of theirs brought back the idea to Sweden from what was then Persia (now Turkey). Allegedly the practice of encoding messages was in Turkey so developed that it was used by the military. Flowers were sent as messages, because if they were intercepted by the enemy it would be very unlikely that the enemy would suspect any kind of message at all. (At Ready Flowers Australia we guarantee that if our flower delivery is intercepted by the enemy, our delivery people will never talk!)

Since the 1700s, beginning in fact in Victorian times, many, many books have been published on the meaning of flowers, and Ready Flowers Australia can say with confidence that is where many of our modern customs today in giving flowers come from (for example, red roses for lovers). Of course, rules were meant to be broken, but for certain occasions in flower delivery tradition is the best way to go (roses are a perfect example of this).

Well, at Ready Flowers Australia we hope you have learnt something about flowers and history from this. Think about it next time you arrange a flower delivery!