Cutting a flower is not always a bad thing
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Subtitle: Sometimes it is an act of kindness. But who will understand?
In my garden there was a bud.
A peach rose, almost ready to open. But the August sun in the Netherlands was merciless — too hot, too direct, too brutal for something so delicate. If I had left it there, it would have wilted in a few hours. Beautiful for a moment, then gone.
So I cut it.
The gesture that seems wrong
I already know what people think when they see someone cut a flower in bud. You're interrupting a natural process. You're deciding for the plant. You're playing God with a pair of scissors.
But that rose, in a glass vase, away from the fierce sun and dry air, did something wonderful: it kept opening. Slowly. With all the calm in the world. Almost completely open in just one day — covered in droplets, luminous, alive.
In the air conditioning. Against all apparent botanical logic.
Kindness towards beautiful things
There is a gesture that is not taught but learned over time: that of protecting something beautiful from excess — of sun, of heat, of attention, of expectations.
Cutting is not always destroying. Sometimes it is saving.
The gardener knows it. The farmer knows it. Anyone who has spent years among plants knows it deep down — not as a concept, but as instinct. You feel when the right moment is. You feel when to let go and when to intervene.
Interrupting the natural process is sometimes the most natural gesture that exists.
But who will understand?
That is the question I asked myself as I watched that rose open on the table, with the afternoon light hitting it from the side.
Those who have never had their hands in the soil, who have never waited for a bud to open, who judge by the photo and not the story behind it — will probably not understand.
And that is fine.
Roses don't need to be understood by everyone. They need to be cared for by someone.
The joy of that moment
Those who understand will also understand this: that watching a rose open slowly, in silence, on your table — is a privilege. You cannot buy it. You cannot book it. You cannot plan it.
It comes when you have had the patience to cut at the right moment, to put in the water, to wait. And then, at a certain point in the afternoon, you notice that it is there — fully open, covered in droplets, with the light hitting it from the side — and you stop. A second. Maybe longer.
That moment is yours alone. And that is enough.
Luigi Paolicchi — piantedappartamento.shop