One of the large floral delivery companies used this slogan: “Say it with flowers”. What’s that all about, and why would they say that?

If you are a person of a certain age, you will remember that the Bee Gees said it many years ago: “It’s just emotion, taking me over, caught up in sorrow, lost in a song”. We get a hint of the depression that plagued some of the Brothers Gibb, but notice also how the Bee Gees associate emotion and music.

Experts say that 93% of communication effectiveness is nonverbal. Think for a moment about the arts: music, sculpture, painting, drama, dance. Aren’t all the arts merely an effort to communicate without words? Inevitably, when we talk about art, we end up trying to describe it with words. We do this to make sure we are in agreement about what the art means. In a way we are reinterpreting the art back into our normal every day medium, language. Art critics make a living doing this.

So why are we discussing this on a flower shop website? Let’s say we agree that language has limits, especially in difficult or intensely emotional situations. Flowers convey emotions very economically and they do it in a nonverbal medium. Flowers are living art. In fact, people that create floral arrangements are called designers. When you receive a beautiful arrangement you notice the colors, the textures, the shapes, the aroma. So when we celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, a birth, a love, a life well lived, we use flowers and bring our message directly to the parts of our brain that register emotions. This is the language of flowers and this is our mission at A New Leaf. We are here to help you communicate emotion in all the important events of your life.

written by Doug Frazeur