Who doesn’t love to get flowers on their birthday? Go one step further and choose a birthday bouquet that features their birth flower!
Finding a birth flower can help you learn more about a person you care about, or yourself. Being attuned with your birth flowers and stones can bring good luck and prosperity. Birth flowers are slightly different to our star signs and can give you a slightly different insight into yourself. Many months have multiple flowers so you can take what you like from each, ignore one completely, or create a fabulous bouquet of them all!
Including their month’s birth flower is an easy way to add an extra personal touch to your gift. Read through to find the month you’re looking for, or explore our birthday range to treat someone special on their birthday.
January Birth Flowers
A chilly month full of hope for the new year. It’s unsurprising that this is reflected in the flowers of this month: snowdrops and carnations.
Snowdrops are a grounded flower. Quite literally low to the ground, the snowdrop represents those who are humble, quietly push for change and provide beauty and wonder when it’s most needed. Snowdrops flower between January and March and are usually the first flower to make their debut after winter. An elegant and understated flower, they pair well with white roses for a winter bouquet. They’ve become an incredibly popular winter wedding bouquet for precisely these reasons.
Understated not sound like you? January is also represented by the bold, bustling beauty of carnations. Brimming with hundreds of pleated petals they are soft and strong. Their delicate beauty is backed by a determination. Typically a summer bloom, carnations are adaptable, independent and can flower throughout the year to bring their joy to the darkest months.
From bright pops of colours to gentle, fluttering pastels, the carnation is a versatile flower and makes an impactful bouquet. Loyalty, love, devotion and pride are represented under the rainbow of the carnation’s many colours.
Birth Flowers for February
February is a month for love, but the birth flowers for this month go deeper than red roses. Primrose and violets both represent a love that goes beyond initial passion or lust.
Primrose is for a love far more ‘prim and proper’ than the passions of the red rose. A common staple in cottage gardens, the primrose reflects very idyllic love. One of the first flowers to emerge for spring, the primrose is often seen as a flower of young love. It also has strong ties with femininity and especially young women. In Norse traditions, primroses are gifted to the goddess Freyja.
One of the oldest known romance poets there is, Sappho, cemented the gifting of violets as a sign of love. Violets represent faithfulness, modesty and a virtuous love. Violets are also associated with the Virgin Mary, which is perhaps what makes them such a modest flower of love. Interestingly, the leaves and flowers for both plants are completely edible. Perfect for that person you just want to eat up!
Birth Flowers for March
March signals the start of spring, where flower beds across the UK light up with cheery yellow daffodils. March is represented specifically by Jonquil daffodils. The Jonquil are sweeter and more voluminous than the common UK daffodil, with a wonderful aroma. These are a flower of complicated love; both the balance between loving yourself enough and too much, and of intentionally creating a balanced love with a partner.
Jonquil is a flower of rebirth and moving energy. This month aligns well with the astrological calendar; the two star signs of March are Pisces and Aries. The humble daffodil holds these truths together- the need for deep friendship that is beloved by Pisces, and the confident independence of Aries.
April Birth Flowers
April is showered with classically British flowers, full of joy and vibrancy. The daisy and sweet pea are its birth flowers. The daisy is a flower most of us associate with childhood. It is a flower of friendship and delight. The opening and closing of the daisy at the start and end of each day symbolises freshness, good rest. The name derives from “Day’s eye;” the idea being that as the day turned to night it would close its eyes and rest, ready for a fresh start the following morning.
Sweet peas, a common pet name and term of endearment, are a flower of bliss and enchantment. Stunning ruffled petals make a big impression and add a sense of whimsy to the garden. In France, sweet peas are given to brides for good luck on their wedding day.
Birth Flowers for May
Lily of the valley and hawthorn are both very fragrant flowers, with small pale blooms. Smaller than its cousin the lily, the sweet little bells of lily of the valley have contributed much to its symbolism. A flower for the sweetness of motherhood, of chastity and purity. In some legends, lily of the valley sprang from Eves tears as she left the Garden of Eden. In Victorian floriography, this was adapted to the meaning “a return to happiness.”
Hawthorn flowers are also small, but rest on strong and thorny branches. Hawthorn has long been used as a fertility, rebirth and spring. They are very common across the British Isles, and can grow up to four hundred years old.
Birth Flowers for June
The first true month of summer. As the sun slowly sets, romance and good vibes mingle in the air alongside the intoxicating scent of rose and honeysuckle.
June is the peak month of roses blooming. They need little care this month, so June is the gardeners time to literally sit back and smell the roses. As a birth flower, the June rose echoes this; telling us to celebrate the joys in life and the pleasures of our hard work.
Not just a flower for Valentine’s, roses come in a huge variety each with its own meaning in floriography, the language of flowers. Red, pink and yellow are the most common naturally occurring colours for roses. Red is commonly used to represent passion, as we see in the red rose boom around Valentine’s Day. Yellow roses are the perfect gift for a friend and a pink rose shows your deep appreciation for the one you give it to. White roses are a gardener’s favourite, and have become increasingly common. White roses are a symbol of purity, but are also some of the hardiest roses. Innocence does not mean fragility for this rose.
Honeysuckle grows as a shrub or climbing vine, making it less common to find in a bouquet but excellent to stumble upon outdoors. The honeysuckle has a sweet, heavy perfume, with nectar hiding in the long flowers. It is very popular with pollinators and a commonly used symbol of happiness.
July Birth Flowers
Spirituality, rebirth and reinvention are the core values of Julys birth flowers, the water lily and larkspur. Larkspurs are a very flirtatious flower, for love without the strings attached. The colour of the larkspur is said to communicate the openness of your heart. White for a happy go lucky, carefree love, pink for a lack of loyalty and purple larkspur for instant infatuation or first love. This is a birth flower for people who are in touch with their feelings and happy to communicate them.
Water lilies are a birth flower for your deeper side. The prominent bloom lasts for only a few days, creating a dramatic focal point before passing on the baton to another lily pad. This calls us to re-centre our perspective and remember the transience of life.
Birth Flowers for August
Big bold and colourful flowers are the call of the day for August, with gladioli and poppies representing this month.
Gladioli are named after the distinct shape of their long spears of blooms. Gladioli is derived from the Latin word ‘gladius’ for sword. Be careful who you’re giving them to. To gift gladioli is to say “you have pierced my heart” in the language of flowers – which is a dramatic way of signalling infatuation or love. Heroic in scale and hardiness, they make an excellent flower for grand gestures! They are also a sign of remembrance, which make them a popular choice for anniversaries.
August shares its flower with a remembrance bloom of another sort; the poppy. Another hardy and bright flower, their hardiness has created their association with Remembrance Day. One of the only flowers to bloom after the war, they became a symbol of hope for the post-war period. Due to their seeds, poppies have also long been a flower of sleep, peace and rest.
September Birth Flowers
As summer fades and winter approaches, September is represented by the autumn flowers aster and morning glory. Asters grow in clusters with each flower a tiny, vivid purple starburst of petals. They are related to the daisy, but smaller and bustling with many more layers of petals. Named after their star-like shape, they also share many of the meanings we connect with stars; wisdom, following a path, and a wistfulness for things just out of reach.
Morning glory is not often used in bouquets, but make excellent display plants and are often found in traditional medicines. Blooming trumpets that grow on deep, twining vines. These are a flower for both deep connection and the act of longing for it. These two flowers together communicate wisdom, reflection and emotional intensity.
Birth Flowers for October
The birth flowers for October are marigolds and cosmos. Two flowers from the American continent, covering Mexico and the southern United States, these are flowers for those who enjoy the simple things in life. Indigenous to scrub and meadowland, these flowers represent the art and beauty in everyday life.
The neat nature of the cosmos flower has given it its name and meaning- order and harmony within the universe. The cosmos is a flower for peace and tranquillity.
Marigolds are commonly used in Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico. They are one of the few flowers of death that celebrate the joy of the life passed, rather than solely the grief of those remaining.
November Birth Flower
Chrysanthemum is the only flower for this month. Chrysanthemums are one of the most popular choices for a gift bouquet and also a flower heavily laden with meanings.
In many European countries, they are a flower of comfort given in sympathy after a death. In Greece the flower is used as a means of warding off evil spirits. In several Asian countries, it is variably seen as a symbol for a long and happy life and when found growing near graves it is bad luck to remove them.
This birth flower shares much with the star sign it shares most of the month with. Much like Scorpio, this flower is often misunderstood and seen as elusive, secretive or bad luck. Many are suspicious of the chrysanthemum. However, this is a flower for courage and intuition.
Birth Flowers for December
December babies all have to tussle with having a birthday so close to Christmas. The birth flowers for this month, holly, narcissus and poinsettia, each connect to this in a different way.
Holly is often used for its greenery to be a supporting act for other flowers – but those bright red berries can make a stunning centrepiece all on their own. Holly has been used in Britain for centuries as a symbol of peace, goodwill and protection. Holly is for the team players that can thrive independently. Get you a plant that can do both!
Narcissus is the paper white cousin to the ‘narcissistic’ daffodil. Where daffodils represent a complicated love, the narcissus makes things simple, representing innocence, purity and prosperity.
Poinsettia will come in as the star of the show, and will tell you that they need attention. It might be Christmas but that just means there’s even more parties to have a blast at around your birthday. Let loose, relax and let the parties start! Used to create dyes and medicines, poinsettia were highly treasured by the Aztecs. Not to be without this precious flower, King Montezuma would have poinsettias specially shipped into his kingdom in Mexico City from surrounding regions where they grew more abundantly. Their Christmas association grew out of this and by the 17th century it was common with priests in southern Mexico to use the dramatic green and red flowers to decorate nativity scenes.
