From Bouquets to Wild Meadows: A Florist on Poland’s Flower Traditions

lukasz-Kwiaty-and-Miut.jpg, default, Łukasz Marcinkowski with a bouquet he made himself. Photo: private archive

Flowers accompany some of Poland’s most deeply rooted rituals, memories and everyday gestures – from tulips given on Women’s Day to chrysanthemums placed on graves and poppies blooming across the countryside. Together with Łukasz Marcinkowski – florist, flower farmer and owner of the Poznań-based flower shop KWIATY&MIUT – we explore what flowers reveal about Polish identity, nostalgia, changing traditions, and the country’s enduring relationship with the natural world.

A love of flowers, imbued with romantic and symbolic significance, is a recurring theme in Polish literature and the visual arts. In allegorical language, flowers have often been seen as symbols of character traits, whilst bouquets – such as those given by Wokulski – have served as a tangible expression of feelings. With its water lilies, roses sheltered by straw scarecrows, and hollyhocks from Dziwny Ogród (The Strange Garden), Polish culture even produced the syncretic poem Kwiaty Polskie (Polish Flowers), in which Julian Tuwim, longing for his homeland, found solace in recalling the Polish landscape. And just as the symbolic meaning of individual plants has not changed, the socio-economic circumstances that determine the composition of our bouquets have transformed.

Ewa Wołkanowska-Kołodziej: Which flowers do you associate with Poland?

Łukasz Marcinkowski: Poppies. The kind that grows in fields between the grain fields. I was raised in the countryside in a farming family; there were plenty of those fields and flowers in my childhood. So I think of poppies with nostalgia. It is an unassuming medicinal ruderal plant, meaning one that can survive in very harsh conditions. It will grow in both dry fields and waterlogged meadows. Very delicate on the outside, but with a strong root system that draws nutrients from deep down in the ground. Besides, the poppy is a magical plant; its seeds were used in many Proto-Slavic rituals. Actually, I also have a special personal connection with poppies, as the name of my company is Papaver, which is the Latin word for poppy. I grow flowers on a farm near Poznań. Sand and medicinal poppies grow there; I also have Shirley Poppies – garden varieties that mingle with those growing wild, spreading and taking over more and more of the land. That’s just their nature.

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Poppies in the garden. Photo from Łukasz Marcinkowski’s private collection

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EWK: And the poppy is red.

ŁM: And the Polish flag – white and red.

EWK: Every Pole is also familiar with the patriotic song ‘Czerwone Maki na Monte Cassino’ (Red Poppies on Monte Cassino).

ŁM: So it fits in with what we call Polishness.

EWK: It’s just that you rarely see wild poppies these days.

ŁM: This is because industrial agriculture relies heavily on chemicals. Consequently, there are fewer and fewer wild plants, such as poppies and cornflowers, growing in the fields. However, when a farmer fails to spray the whole field, or deliberately leaves part of it unsprayed, a sea of red poppies quickly bursts into bloom in such spots. So when it comes to our national flower, I’d go for the poppy, because it brings to mind the idyllic Polish countryside that we really do long for. Almost all Poles have rural roots. We forget this because we are shut away in cities. We are told that we must live in these cities, sit in front of a computer at work and keep clicking. But I get the impression that our genotype and our subconscious crave contact with nature. This is evident at rural harvest festivals, which attract not only local residents but also people from big cities. They miss the countryside.

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A flower-filled meadow. Photo from Łukasz Marcinkowski’s private collection

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EWK: In recent years, a trend has emerged in large cities to sow wildflower meadows with chamomile, clover, delphiniums, poppies and cornflowers.

ŁM: When technological change accelerates – and it certainly has recently – people naturally long for contact with nature, or at least a substitute for it. Hence, they prefer a wildflower meadow to a lawn mown to perfection, as at Wimbledon. The very essence of Polish flowers is the meadow – tiny blooms scattered among the grass or grain.

Another flower associated with Poland is the hollyhock. We know it from Józef Chełmoński’s romantic paintings, and we see it in every open-air museum of the Polish countryside, where hollyhocks are planted beneath the windows of wooden cottages. When we look at plants once grown in home gardens, it quickly becomes clear that they did not serve a purely decorative purpose. They were a pharmacy – they cured illnesses. Take the yellow forsythia – its flowers adorn almost every home at Easter today, yet few people know that it is very healthy and has antibacterial properties. The hollyhock also has healing properties.

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Łukasz Marcinkowski with a bouquet he made himself. Photo from the interviewee’s private collection

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EWK: Which other flowers do you remember from your childhood?

ŁM: I grew up in the countryside with my parents, siblings, cousins, grandmother, and aunt and uncle – we all lived close by. Even as a child, I knew the names of my first plants. In our garden, we had snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, hollyhocks, zinnias, gladioli, peonies, tulips, irises, roses, and marigolds.

EWK: I suppose they are familiar to many Poles.

ŁM: Note that the Poles’ attitude towards flowers is primarily shaped by our geographical latitude. For half the year, we have either winter or a grey blanket of clouds in the sky. The tree branches are bare then, and the plants die, leaving behind graphic but not very optimistic skeletons. With the arrival of spring, we Slavs experience a rebirth. So, on the farm, I mainly grow seasonal flowers. First come the tulips, then the peonies, the perennials, and finally the dahlias. They arrive at my florist’s in Poznań, and people buy them. I wouldn’t be able to sell them in a small town, because these are plants that locals already have in their own gardens, so they don’t crave them enough to pay for them. In cities, however, instead of gardens, we have micro-balconies built by developers, so there is demand for flowers that evoke nostalgia.

Since we’re talking about people’s favourite flowers, I’d like to point out that their popularity doesn’t always stem from tradition or national character. It’s often driven by economic factors – floral tastes are frequently shaped by marketing and strategic initiatives.

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A bouquet by Łukasz Marcinkowski. Photo from the interviewee’s private collection

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EWK: In what way?

ŁM: One could safely say, for example, that tulips are Poland’s national flower. This stems from the fact that, after the Second World War, a group of people known pejoratively as ‘badylarze’ emerged in our country. There were no imported flowers in Poland at all at that time; we were cut off from the rest of the world. These flower entrepreneurs began growing tulips and carnations on a large scale in their greenhouses during the winter – flowers that tolerate lower temperatures well, so the cost of producing them was not high. Even before the meadows and the flowers in people’s gardens had blossomed, the market was already teeming with carnations and tulips. Now, absolutely everything is available. Eighty per cent of the flowers in Polish florists’ shops are imported from Africa, South America and Asia. In those parts of the world, the temperature is always high, and the sun is always shining.

There are often no strict regulations governing the use of chemicals either – so you can water the plants with them to the point where they literally glow in the dark. Most of our gardeners have stopped growing flowers in winter because it isn’t profitable – you simply can’t compete with the big players. Several generations of Poles have become accustomed to buying tulips on Women’s Day, 8 March, even though they could choose any bouquet of flowers. I therefore count tulips among the most popular flowers in Poland. The same goes for carnations, but these have less favourable associations, as they are linked to the Polish People’s Republic. Red carnations were extremely popular back then, so they understandably evoke a certain aversion.

EWK: In turn, on All Souls’ Day, chrysanthemums take centre stage in cemeteries throughout the length and breadth of Poland.

ŁM: Yes, this is also a tradition started by the so-called ‘badylarze’. Chrysanthemums cope well with cold, both as potted plants and as cut flowers. We like chrysanthemums because we used to have them in autumn, when other flowers were no longer available.

Do you know why people give red roses on Valentine’s Day in so many countries around the world? It’s most likely linked to the shift in rose cultivation from the US to cheaper Colombia. This made it possible to have fresh flowers available as early as February, when Valentine’s Day was celebrated across the Atlantic. Through films and TV series in the 1990s, this tradition reached us too. Americans were buying a dozen red roses with gypsophila on that occasion, and Poles were giving each other identical bouquets. To me, the red rose is now more a symbol of industrial production than of love. These flowers are kept in cold stores for months; they’re perishable and quickly wilt in people’s vases. Most roses arrive in the Netherlands in a dried state, where they are rehydrated in water and then shipped to the rest of the world. I don’t think there’s any point in buying them. That’s why we don’t sell red roses in my florist’s for Valentine’s Day – you can buy other flowers that are just as beautiful and long-lasting.

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A bouquet by Łukasz Marcinkowski. Photo from the interviewee’s private collection

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EWK: Do you have a problem with the fact that Poles like roses?

ŁM: No, not at all. I believe the rose is the queen of flowers, although it is, of course, most commonly associated with the English gardens of the aristocracy. It is found virtually all over the world and comes in countless varieties. What’s more, garden roses offer a whole spectrum of scents: from fruit compote, through liquorice and Campari, to honey cake with almonds. They have a hard time in Poland because of the climate, but they’ve certainly made themselves at home here too. In front of my parents’ house grows a rose my grandparents planted half a century ago, when they moved into their new home.

The plant is still alive, though it is very frail. Commercially grown flowers have no scent, and I have plenty of garden roses on the farm – they look beautiful and smell lovely, but they, in turn, are impermanent. Our customers have grown accustomed to this transience – they buy them, knowing that the scent makes up for their fleeting nature. After all, flowers tend to appear in a person’s life when stability, peace of mind and financial security are also present. Only then can a person even begin to consider why they want those flowers. A need arises to commune with something beautiful, ephemeral, unnecessary, inedible, non-functional. We are, of course, talking about flowers that serve a purely decorative purpose.

EWK: Your florist’s is wonderful, but also quite upmarket.

ŁM: We get both wealthy customers and those who simply love flowers, even if they can’t afford a large bouquet. Sometimes a customer will buy a single buttercup and enjoy it for a week and a half.

EWK: Buttercup seeds are often found in wildflower meadow mixes, so we’re heading back to the countryside.

ŁM: When I look at modern-day Poland, I get the impression that the countryside is disappearing. Most of my relatives and friends want to get away from it.

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Rose bushes. Photo: Udo Rusch/East News

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Łukasz Marcinkowski – owner of Papaver and the KWIATY&MIUT florist’s in Poznań. An interior designer and florist with twenty-five years’ experience. Co-author of the books Elementarz Kwiatowy (A Primer on Flowers), O Roślinach (About Plants), O Kwiatach (About Flowers). He runs a farm where he grows plants using traditional methods. On the farm, he has created a meeting space where he holds workshops and an annual farm picnic, which draws on the traditions of the Wielkopolska harvest festival.

Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Mistur

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