Every month has a birth flower associated with it, and each one has its own special meaning. Knowing about birth month flowers is really helpful when you’re considering sending birthday flowers to someone.
Here is our guide to birth month flowers to help you choose the perfect bouquet for a friend, lover, family member or someone special.
January’s Birth Flower: Carnation
You probably recognise carnations from having seen them in buttonholes, table decorations and bouquets at weddings. That’s because generally, carnations signify loyalty, love and devotion. Many people also associate carnations with fascination and distinction, so you could send this birth flower to someone who inspires you.
Whether you want to express familial love, romantic love, or love for a friend, carnations are the perfect way to do it. However, you might want to avoid yellow carnations, as they stand for disappointment and rejection.
February’s Birth Flower: Violet or Primrose
Since February’s birthstone is amethyst, which is purple, it makes sense that February’s birth flower is the violet. With their delicate, heart-shaped petals, violets symbolise faithfulness, virtue, modesty, humility, and spiritual wisdom.
The primrose is a small and pretty flower that blooms in early spring. Most primroses are white, cream, yellow, orange, red, or pink, with a glowing golden centre. You can also get purple and blue primrose flowers.
March’s Birth Flower: Daffodil or Jonquil
It’s fair to say that nothing signifies spring quite like a daffodil! These cheerful blooms are everywhere come Mother’s Day in March, which is also the first official month of spring. Usually bright yellow, daffodils, or narcissus, can also be white or orange. Daffodils symbolise luck, vanity, prosperity and rebirth.
Jonquils are also narcissus, but they are not daffodils. Jonquils have clusters of perfumed flowers on their stems, where daffodils have one flower on a stem. Also, jonquil leaves are slender with round tips, not pointed, and the flowers only grow in yellow hues.
April’s Birth Flower: Daisy or Sweet Pea
When you think of daisies, you might picture a spring meadow or the art of crafting a daisy chain while you enjoy a picnic. These gorgeous flowers are traditionally associated with purity and innocence. They are also said to represent fertility and motherhood, so they’re great to give to new mums. If you want to gift daisies as birth flowers, a bouquet of gerbera daisies cannot fail to delight. Gerberas come in a range of colours, including white, burnt orange, sunny yellow, deep purple, and many more.
Sweet peas are April’s second birth month flowers. Sweet peas come in a range of beautiful colours, and by mixing different colours together, you create a stunning posy. Even a small amount of sweet peas can fill a room with fragrance. The sweet pea signifies intense pleasure, perhaps because of its heady scent.
May’s Birth Flower: Lily of the Valley
With its delicate bell-like, white flowers and sweet scent, lily of the valley looks beautiful in a bouquet of flowers. Royal brides have chosen lily of the valley for their bouquets for generations.Lily of the valley is traditionally seen as symbolising humility, purity, sweetness, the return of happiness, and motherhood. It is the perfect gift for mums whose birthdays happen to be in May.
June’s Birth Flower: Rose or Honeysuckle
Rose is the flower of love, and you can’t go far wrong by choosing roses for June birth month flowers. As well as love, roses symbolise beauty, honour and devotion.
If you want to be specific with colour and meaning, choose:
- Red roses for romance and passion
- Pink roses for gratitude and admiration, or femininity and elegance
- Yellow roses for warmth, happiness and joy
- White roses for purity and grace
- Orange roses for enthusiasm and energy
Honeysuckle, also known as woodbine, has creamy-white or yellow flowers that open at twilight. This birth flower symbolises constancy, devotion, domestic happiness, and fraternal love.
July’s Birth Flower: Larkspur and Water Lily
The larkspur, or delphinium, represents love, joy, dignity, and positivity. This classic British bloom can be found growing wild in many woodlands across the UK. Delphiniums are said to symbolise an open heart, positivity, dignity and grace.
Water lilies grow in the water and represent enlightenment, happiness, purity, innocence and chastity. These beautiful flowers have a strong fragrance. Colours include pink, blue, red, white, purple, yellow, and even black.
August’s Birth Flower: Gladiolus or Poppy
The Latin word ‘gladius’ means ‘sword’, as in ‘gladiator’. The victorious gladiator was showered with gladioli, and because of this, gladioli are associated with strength, generosity, honesty, and moral integrity. The gladiolus is a striking bloom boasting pointed, sword-like leaves and dramatic stalks of flowers. Gladiolus also stands for infatuation.
Poppies are typically associated with Remembrance month when we wear a red poppy as a mark of respect to all those members of the military who lost their lives in war. Because of this, this beautiful August birth month flower is a symbol of silence, consolation, sleep, and peace.
September’s Birth Flower: Aster or Morning Glory
Aster flowers were named after the Greek word for 'star' because of their shape. These September birth month flowers are beautiful, dainty, star-like blooms. Asters symbolise fidelity, wisdom, valour, love, and faith. Choose yellow asters to make someone’s day and blue asters to bring calmness and stability. White asters symbolise new beginnings.
The morning glory is a vine with heart-shaped leaves and funnel-shaped flowers. These birth flowers stand for love, passion, affection, and rebirth and remind us that every new day is God’s gift of glory.
October’s Birth Flower: Marigold or Cosmos
Have you ever noticed how the marigold looks like the sun? Golden yellow, global, and bursting with heat, the marigold is often associated with warmth, love, and creativity. As one of autumn's sturdiest flower, marigolds also represent stubbornness and determination.
The most common species of the cosmos is a member of the Aster family, and the flowers are usually red, pink or white. This birth flower represents order, tranquillity, and balance.
November’s Birth Flower: Chrysanthemum
Chrysanthemums bloom in a range of colours, including white, yellow, orange, lavender, purple, red, and even bicolour. When selecting a November birth flower, choose red chrysanthemums as a symbol of love, white chrysanthemums for loyalty and devotion, or you could choose your recipient’s favourite colour. However, you might want to avoid yellow chrysanthemums because they symbolise neglected love or sorrow.
In general, chrysanthemums represent friendship, honesty and happiness. Chrysanthemums also signify love and optimism and are thought to bring good luck and joy into a home.
December’s Birth Flower: Holly or Narcissus
Holly is associated with peace and goodwill. Seasonal festivities just wouldn’t be the same without wreaths and table decorations festooned with those prickly dark green leaves and bright red berries. So it seems only right that holly is the birth month flower for December. Holly is known for good fortune, peace and merriment.
The paperwhite is the winter-growing variety of the genus Narcissus. This December birth flower is associated with sweetness and signifies that you want your beloved to stay just the way they are. In China, narcissus represents the Chinese New Year because it is associated with hope, wealth and good fortune.
