The Stone Diaries

A love of flowers and gardens ties together most of the characters. Daisy, named after a flower, takes pride in her home garden and thinks of it as her “dearest child, the most beautiful of her offspring, obedient but possessing the fullness of its spaces” (196). She likes the control and creativity her garden yields. Later, she becomes “Mrs. Green Thumb,” sharing her gardening tips with devoted readers of the Recorder. Barker was originally “Mr. Green Thumb,” having studied botany and horticulture. He is obsessed with the lady-slipper, a flower he describes as “sensuous” and “his” (45-46). Perhaps both Barker and Daisy learned their love for flora from Barker’s mother, Clarentine, who made her living as a single woman selling flowers. In a letter to Cuyler in 1916, Clarentine notes how “the world has discovered the happiness that simple flowers can bring to an otherwise dreary wartime existence” (54).

We are also introduced to the “Flowers,” the ladies who live in Daisy’s condo complex. They all are named after flowers: Lily, Myrtle, and Glad. Together with Daisy, they become the popular clique among the retired Floridian condo residents. They become Daisy’s new family, helping her cope with retirement and feel at home after she suffers her heart attack.

Later, Victoria, Daisy’s grandniece, studies paleobotany in college, learning about older plant life and searching for fossil evidence of it in Scotland. She adds a new dimension to the novel’s recurring symbol of flora. Whereas Daisy, Barker, Clarentine, and the Flowers identify with flora in the present, defining themselves through their ability to make a living through their passion, Victoria studies flowers and plant life in the past, embodying the novel’s concern with family history and understanding where one comes from.