It’s perhaps not an idiom that’s heard very often, but if someone is told to bloom where he or she is planted, that means they should do their best under the current set of circumstances. It doesn’t mean a person can’t be transplanted elsewhere at a later date, and bloom in the new location. It means that just because the current location may not be all a person would like it to be is no reason not to do your best and thrive where that person is.
The Basin Republican Rustler of May 24, 2007 in Wyoming published an advertisement from the Wyoming Real Estate Network that painted an idyllic picture of ten acres of land just waiting for the right person to build a dream home. Smartly priced at $120,000 the realtors hoped to catch people’s attention with the headline, “Bloom Where You’re Planted.”
The Ocala Star Banner of August 29, 1987 ran the Paul Harvey column dealing with the issue of blooming where one is planted. From a religious as well as a political standpoint, the writer spoke about people, churches, and nations exceeding their grasp. He wrote about American adopting the good neighbor policy and all the while neglecting that one of the most important aspects of being a good neighbor is to mind one’s own business.
Paul Harvey was of the opinion that if the United States started minding its own business that other countries might be inspired to follow suit, leading to affection and not resentment towards America and Americans. The article was title, “Bloom Where You’re Planted.”
Over the generations, people have attributed bloom where you are planted to the Bible, and while that’s not exactly correct, the idiom does have a connection to the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) is credited with having said the following:
Truly charity has no limit; for the love of God has been poured into our hearts by His Spirit dwelling in each one of us, calling us to a life of devotion and inviting us to bloom in the garden where He has planted and directing us to radiate the beauty and spread the fragrance of His Providence.
And while the idiom may not appear in the Bible word for word, the spirit of bloom where you’re planted is found in a number of Bible passages including, but not limited to, 1 Corinthians 7:7-24 as well as Psalm 92:13 and Jeremiah 17:7-8.
Later American graphic artist and children’s book illustrator Mary Engelbreit (born 5 June 1952) made the phrase popular when she included it — as well as artwork based on the phrase — in her book, “Mary Englebreit: The Art and the Artist“published in 1996.
As we know, Paul Harvey used the phrase a decade earlier than the publication of Mary Engelbreit’s book, and it was used in a way that demonstrated that the readers of his column knew what it meant to bloom where one was planted.
In fact, the American Church in Paris (France) has sponsored the “Bloom Where You’re Planted” full-day seminar since 1970.
What all this means is that the spirit of the idiom has been around for centuries, but no matter how much research was done, Idiomation was unable to find a definitive date for when this exact phrase was first published.
Historically Speaking 