Once the door to Spring is cracked open, watch out. There seems to be no limit of vibrant swaths of color pop­ping up every­where.

It’s hard to miss the stun­ning fruit tree blos­som­ing in and around neigh­bor­hoods or road­side orchards.

A river walk presents clus­ters of wild neon pop­pies and ver­dant anise in early bloom. Breathe it all in…then exhale slowly.

Awaken the senses with pots of bold color after Easter pas­tels fade. Peren­nial bulb plants give us an excuse, as if one is needed, to dig in the gar­den beds.

Avoid get­ting dirt on the hands alto­gether with one quick trip to a gro­cery store these days. The bevy of new color bowls and pot­ted color bulbs and plants is staggering.

It’s cus­tom­ary on Mother’s Day to honor mom with break­fast in bed or a din­ner menu made on the bar­be­cue.

Col­or­ful flo­ral bou­quets, arrange­ments, and pot­ted bloom­ing plants are an expres­sion of love for those moms who pre­fer botan­i­cal signs of affec­tion.

While the orig­i­nal idea of a day devoted to moth­ers was con­cep­tu­ally a day of observ­ing peace dur­ing wartime, today’s remem­brances have more to do with fam­ily gath­er­ings and activ­i­ties.

There are some moms out there who just want a quiet day of gar­den­ing, read­ing for plea­sure or leisure time. That could include a dream of nap­ping on a lounge chair or ham­mock. Sleep deprived moms are largely fueled by cof­fee and the next item on the daily “to do” list. Check.

Expen­sive pur­chases of jew­elry and the like mat­ter less than catch­ing our col­lec­tive mom breath. Cre­at­ing space and time to slow down is really what moth­ers may need most. In par­tic­u­lar, moth­ers of small chil­dren rel­ish a few min­utes to themselves.

It won’t come as a sur­prise that color has a pro­found effect on mood. With Spring in gear, plan to lift more than a mood by sur­round­ing work and home spaces with bright flow­ers, flow­er­ing plants and pot­ted herbs.

Plac­ing pots of color in work envi­ron­ments and around the house can seri­ously boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and con­tribute to our men­tal clar­ity through­out the day.

While there are many high-​tech ways to improve air qual­ity, one refresh­ingly easy method is to bring liv­ing plants into our liv­ing spaces. Bet­ter indoor air qual­ity helps to keep the immune sys­tem strong. Breath­ing fresher air is invig­o­rat­ing and bright­ens up the day.

Tulips carry a very sto­ried past. They have the abil­ity to cap­ture hearts (and break them), make for­tunes (and lose them), inspire poetry and art and influ­ence cul­ture.

The tulip orig­i­nated cen­turies ago in Per­sia and Turkey, where 80 or so wild vari­eties were grown in very arid regions.

The tulip in Iran (Per­sia) rep­re­sents par­adise on earth and of hav­ing divine sta­tus. Euro­peans gave tulips their name, mis­tak­enly, derived from the Per­sian word for “tur­ban”.

As Euro­peans began tak­ing to tulips, the flower’s pop­u­lar­ity spread quickly, par­tic­u­larly in the Nether­lands where a phe­nom­e­non dubbed tulip mania set in at one point dur­ing the 17^th cen­tury. The Dutch use a tulip to rep­re­sent a human’s brief time on earth.

Tulips became so highly-​prized in the 1600’s that prices were sent soar­ing and mar­kets crash­ing. Tulips are now grown through­out the world, but peo­ple still iden­tify cul­ti­vated vari­eties as “Dutch tulips.”