North American Memorial Day Remembrance Gardens in Pink, Red and White

Summary: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ceremony in 1921 gives North American Memorial Day remembrance gardens carnations, chrysanthemums, roses and snapdragons.

roses for remembrance, Memorial Day weekend, Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia; May 25, 2015: Elvert Barnes, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

North American Memorial Day remembrance gardens assemble pink, red and white carnations, chrysanthemums and roses and red-purple snapdragons as accolades to all in-service, wartime casualties of known and unknown gravesites and identities.

The last Monday in May, like July 4th and November 11th, brings civilian populations and military personnel to cemeteries throughout the continental and insular United States. Memorial Day for the fallen, compared to July Fourth for independence and November 11th for dead and living veterans, calls upon Confederate and Union graveside customs. The Richmond Times-Dispatch dates Memorial Day to the War Between the States (April 12, 1861-May 9, 1865), with Confederate decorations in Warrenton, Virginia, June 3, 1861.

The Grand Army of the Republic endorses 1868 as the first yearly Decoration Day, with the GAR furnishing flowers for Union burial plots in Decatur, Illinois.

Public Laws 89-554 of Sept. 6, 1966, and 90-363 of June 28, 1968, respectively finalize Memorial Day's name and occurrence as the last Monday in May.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Virginia, gets high-profile, world-famous observances of Memorial Day and of Veterans Day since its first observance in 1921. It has six sculpted, 12-berried, 38-leafed wreaths for the First World War's (July 28, 1914-Nov. 11, 1918) Ardennes, Belleau Wood, Château-Thierry, Meuse-Argonne, Oisiu-Eiseu and Somme campaigns. News sources identify its first flower- and wreath-laying ceremonies as Nov. 11, 1921, even though laurel wreaths and pink blooms indicate Memorial more than Veterans Day.

North American Memorial Day remembrance gardens jumble expeditionary force chrysanthemums, Congressional roses and snapdragons, navy chrysanthemums and roses, presidential roses and Supreme Court carnations and chrysanthemums.

Digital archives keep online images from contemporary newspapers of giant pink chrysanthemums from General John Pershing (Sept. 13, 1860-July 15, 1948) for the American Expeditionary Force.

News sources list roses and snapdragons from House Speaker Frederick Gillett (Oct. 16, 1851-July 31, 1935) and Vice President Calvin Coolidge (July 4, 1872-Jan. 5, 1933). They mention Chief Justice William Taft's (Sept. 15, 1857-March 8, 1930) carnation-mixed chrysanthemums and Navy Secretary Edwin Denby's (Feb. 18, 1870-Feb. 8, 1929) chrysanthemums and roses. They note President Warren Harding's (Nov. 2, 1865-Aug. 2, 1923) crimson roses alongside Congress's pink roses, the army's white roses and the French government's pink blooms.

North American Memorial Day remembrance gardens offer the unknown soldier, escorted from France by Rear Admiral Lloyd Chandler (Aug. 17, 1869-Jan. 17, 1947), flowers and wreaths.

Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus [divine flower, nut leaf]) provide fragrant pink or purple blooms, April to August outdoors and year-round indoors, amid essential oil-bearing, gray-green, linear leaves.

Fragrant chrysanthemums (golden flowers) qualify as fall bloomers outside and year-round bloomers inside amid aromatic alternate-arranged, obovate leaves on pyrethrum-filled stems as natural pest-killing pyrethrin sources. Sweet-scented roses revel in bloom times that run from Memorial Day to Labor Day as the respectively unofficial first and last days of North American summers. Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus [big nose-like (capsule)]) sustain five-lobed flower-clustered spikes alongside deep green, lance-shaped foliage in sunny, well-drained soils, with bay laurel, carnations, chrysanthemums and roses.

North American Memorial Day remembrance gardens trigger Maytime and year-round accolades with bright green-leafed, green- to black-berried laurel wreaths and carnation, chrysanthemum, rose and snapdragon arrangements.

roses for remembrance beyond Memorial Day: wreaths sweetened with roses honor the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; Arlington Cemetery, Virginia; Dec. 7, 2009: Richard Gillin (photoverulam), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

roses for remembrance, Memorial Day weekend, Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia; May 25, 2015: Elvert Barnes, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/22200674115/

roses for remembrance beyond Memorial Day: wreaths sweetened with roses honor the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; Arlington Cemetery, Virginia; Dec. 7, 2009: Richard Gillin (photoverulam), CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/photoverulam/5676421217/

For further information:

Jones, Reverend J. William. (Ed.) "The First Confederate Memorial Day." From the Times-Dispatch, July 15, 1906. Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 35.
Available @ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2001.05.0293%3Achapter%3D1.73

Modzelevich, Martha. "Antirrhinum majus, Common Snapdragon, Hebrew: לוע-ארי הגדול, Arabic: گل میمون." FlowersinIsrael.com.
Available @ http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Antirrhinummajus_page.htm

Public Law 89-554. 80 Stat. 515.
Available @ http://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=80&page=515

Public Law 90-363. 82 Stat. 250-251.
Available @ https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg250-3.pdf