Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for many people means wearing green, raising a festive glass, and searching for four-leaf clovers. Roses and carnations dyed in shades of green also often appear in St. Patrick’s Day displays, as well as the beautifully and naturally green bells of Ireland. Marco Island Florist will help you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and the arrival of spring with a gorgeous green basket of flowers.

Bells of Ireland, featured in the St. Patrick’s Day Basket of Luck, have appeared in arrangements since the 1500s, but they were actually first grown in Turkey. Their vibrant green color and distinctive shape inspired cultivators to give them the nickname of bells of Ireland. Today, they’re an excellent choice for St. Patrick’s Day baskets because there’s no need to go through the extra work of dyeing the flowers green. Bells of Ireland are also a perfect flower for spring baskets because they make an early appearance in the spring alongside other early flowers like daffodils and tulips. They’re even easy to dry and preserve as a permanent floral display in your home.

One of the fascinating features of bells of Ireland is that their decorative appearance is actually the “calyx” of the bloom, which is known by cultivators as the protective enclosure around the petals of a flower. Bells of Ireland do feature little white flowers when they bloom, but it’s the iconic bell-shaped exteriors that look so beautiful in floral arrangements, especially when they come from Marco Island Florist for your St. Patrick’s Day celebration.