For many years, if you had asked me to name my least favorite flower, I would have answered without hesitation: the carnation . As a kid, I remember my mom being handed a single, lonely carnation at restaurants on Mother’s Day—usually slightly wilted, always awkward. In floral arrangements, carnations seemed to stand stiffly at attention among other non-descript blooms in what I mentally labeled the budget bouquet . Most of the carnations I encountered were white, pale pink