miranda lambert rose plant
Miranda Lambert, the reigning queen of country music, has left her mark on the genre, and the world in general, with her powerful, emotional voice, many successful chart-topping songs accompanied with slow, emotional lyrics and sincerity that is simply impossible to fake. Lambert’s other talents are known as well. She’s got a deep appreciation for her heritage as it shows now and then. This is notably true in her commitment to country music. This is especially true in the fact that Lambert genuinely lives the life she sings about. An example of her country southern soul is her love for gardening, and particularly for roses. In this article, I want to take a closer look at the meaning of Miranda Lambert’s rose plant. I want to shed light on why and how Lambert and her rose plant reflect parts of her life and career. Miranda Lambert’s public garden.
The Symbolism of Roses in Southern Culture
Roses in the South are symbols of love, and of beauty, strength and tradition. Southern hospitality and grace are tied to these flowers, as is the nostalgia and grace of ye olde times, not to mention garden lust. The South has long enjoyed a climate and soil that allowed many people the fortitude to try their hand at roses, and so they became popular south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Roses are iconic of Southern women’s beauty and toughness; Miranda Lambert’s likely reify the sentiments she echoes in her song ‘The House That Built Me’ (2010), which is about coming of age – the struggles and triumphs with which much of life is defined. White roses have long been a symbol of southern beauty. As a southern-born songwriter and musician, Lambert is referring not only to the plant itself but, inevitably and affectionately, to the south’s association with roses – where the plant and landscape are transferred into humans – in particular, for southern women. This Tolkien/Derridean notion of doubling, whereby roses can symbolise both the plant and a human at the same time, is made materially manifest in the South, and specifically by southern women. Partly due to its colonial history, the south has become the flower-growing capital of the US. A wide variety of roses are cultivated in greenhouses throughout the region. We connect roses as a symbol of our region because we, the southern women, are beautiful like the flowers that populate our region.
Miranda Lambert’s Connection to Gardening
Miranda Lambert, popular country music artist, is a lover of all things plants. In numerous interviews and social media posts, Lambert has highlighted her passion for growing roses and more. Her hobby goes beyond simply being a distraction from fame and mundane daily tasks; instead, Miranda’s gardening is a way to connect to her Southern past and provide a much-needed oasis amid the whirlwind of her life.
Lambert has also characterised her interest in the garden as being influenced by her childhood in Lindale, Texas, in the countryside. She credits the values of hard work, self-sufficiency, and an identification with the land as beginning in her twenties; according to her own statement, she grew up ‘picking cotton and sh statement on her roots gives a way of understanding Lambert’s enduring sense of self, suggesting that, in a way, her roses remind her of her essential self.
The Rose Plant as a Metaphor for Lambert’s Career
Miranda Lambert’s career in country music is like a rose plant. A rose plant begins as an underestimated bud, but slowly blossoms into something so beautiful and prestigious. She began her career humbly and is now an extraordinary, exquisite fragrance. There were a lot of challenges Miranda faced on her way up, similar to the thorns on the stem of a rose. However, all of those thorns helped her to become the phenomenal singer, songwriter, and woman she is to this day: stronger, more beautiful, and far from oily when it comes to her music career.
Lambert’s songs are similarly bound up in themes of love, heartbreak and healing, and many of them could just as easily be about roses. Consider a couple of her most popular songs: ‘The House That Built Me’ (2009) and ‘Tin Man’ (2010). Both songs are about pain and healing in metaphorical ways. They’re about the need to move away from one’s childhood home and passion but, crucially, not one’s memories. Likewise, with Lambert’s rose: it’s just a physical object, but because of its symbolic associations, it’s become much more than that. In the case of Lambert’s rose plant, it functions as a mnemonic, auto-icon and receptacle of meaning all stuffed into one piece of real estate.
The Role of Roses in Lambert’s Personal Life
Besides these associations with her career, roses are also a personal motif for Lambert. Considering the singer’s well-documented love life – from high-profile superstar relationships including a decade-long one with Elton John’s songstress partner, the Canadian musician Sara Sovinski, to her new marriage to police officer Brendan McLoughlin, who she revealed she dated for five months before walking down the aisle – it’s fitting that a centuries-old symbol of romance forms a key feature on her personal branding. The rose – at once exquisite and thorny – is a fitting emblem for the singer’s love life.
A rose garden such as Lambert’s could also serve as a private retreat of respite and contemplation – for considering her past as she tends her roses. Gardening more generally, but also the tending of roses, involves patience, concentrated attention, and care – aspects of character that Lambert has manifested in other aspects of her life. Thus, the act of gardening could involve the tending, not only of one’s garden, but of one’s well-being.
Miranda Lambert’s Southern Roots and the Influence of the Rose Plant
The rose plant – symbol of the Southern gardens – has been a constant feature binding Miranda Lambert’s identity from her childhood, defining the things she sings and does. The South is famous for its Southern gardens – and southerners are permanently proud of how beautiful their gardens are – as well as for their curating of roses, a flower long associated with the region. Southern gardens are those gardens partaking in the dense and colourful look of the south through the planting of many flowers in a relatively small space, including the rose.
In Lambert’s case, her rose garden is perhaps an anchor to a simpler Southern way of life; a nod towards a time before she left home for Hollywood to spend six years attending Nashville-based Belmont University on a music scholarship; a recognition of what she grew up learning and cherishes – the power of art, beauty and simple love. The rose embodies deep symbolism, but in this case it stands as a metaphor for the conduit by which Lambert holds on to her roots and continues on her journey, claiming her musical – and her personal – truth.
The Therapeutic Benefits of Gardening for Lambert
Most likely, though, this symbolism and cultural meaning is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the therapeutic gains of gardening that might also explain Lambert’s attraction to it. Research indicates that it reduces stress and elevates mood, while also stimulating the self-esteem that can wane if you make your living scrutinised in the glare of public exposure and criticism. For Lambert in particular – who is in the public eye, under pressure to conform to an ultra-slim female body ideal, exploited sexually, accused of perpetuating internalised transphobia, and viewed by its victims as someone who insufficiently appreciates and values the pain it inflicts – a fixation on gardening could well be a form of self-care, a form of escape from her elevated profile that re-grounds her.
Tending to her roses is a mindful activity that takes concentrated thought and can be done thoughtfully. Just as her gardening fosters escapism and focus and care, so too can writing and performing music. Gathering in the dirt, connecting with the earth, and seeing something blossom can all increase mental and emotional wellbeing, especially in a Hollywood-enterprise that – to say it bluntly – is hell for her. Lambert’s rose garden is likely a space where she can tend her wounds and seek respite from the malice that seems to come with all of show business.