Double flowers from Palm Sunday sowing

Palm Sunday · Gloucester

Lore and belief

Mr R. Bond of Gloucester sent Ellis an exchange he had witnessed in a seedsman’s shop on a Saturday evening, the eve of Palm Sunday. A lady asked for various flower seeds because she must not fail to sow them the next day. When the shopman asked why that day in particular, she told him it was Palm Sunday, and seeds sown then would be sure to come up double. Bond called it a superstitious notion he had often heard repeated.

it is because to-morrow is Palm Sunday, and the advantage to be derived from sowing on that day is, that the flowers will be sure to come double.

From Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 248. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

A bundle of box for Palm Sunday No longer kept ShropshireDomesday Book records under Shropshire a tenant who paid for half a carucate of land with a bundle of box twigs on Palm Sunday.
Fig Sunday at Kimpton No longer kept HertfordshireAt Kempton in Hertfordshire, as the book spells Kimpton, it had long been the custom for the villagers to eat figs on Palm Sunday, which they called Fig Sunday.
Hail be thou our King No longer kept SurreyDives and Pauper, printed in 1496, describes the priest in the Palm Sunday procession drawing up the veil before the rood and falling to the ground with all the people, saying three times Ave Rex Noster, hail be thou our King.
No palm, no hand Lore and belief EnglandAn old saying held that whoever did not have a palm in his hand on Palm Sunday would have his hand cut off.
Hiring an angel for Palm Sunday No longer kept LondonLondon churchwardens' accounts show parishes paying players for the Palm Sunday procession.
Cakes from the steeple No longer kept EnglandA Protestant dialogue of 1554, quoted by Brand and Hone, mocked the old Palm Sunday processions, saying hardly one in ten thousand knew what they meant.
The palm cross in Nantswell No longer kept CornwallBefore the Reformation people went on Palm Sunday to the well of Our Lady of Nantswell at Little Conan in Cornwall, carrying a cross made of palm.
The Borrowed Days Lore and belief ScotlandThe last three days of March were called the Borrowed Days and were expected to be stormy.
The Caistor gad-whip No longer kept LincolnshireEvery Palm Sunday a man from Broughton came to the north porch of Caistor church during the first lesson and cracked a great ox-whip, the gad-whip, three times.
Going a-palming No longer kept LondonEarly on Palm Sunday men and boys went out from London to gather willow or sallow branches with their grey, velvety buds, which stood in for palms.

Double flowers from Palm Sunday sowing

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