Saturday, 5 August 2017

What's your birth flower?

Did you even know there was such a thing as a birth flower? I didn’t, but apparantly there is. When I send flowers, I tend to just choose some I think the person would like. For some, that’s bright colours and for others it’s muted tones. Personally, I’m a fan of anything bright. I love tulips, daffodils and sunflowers, in particular. Flower Card have created an infographic to tell you which flowers you should buy for which occasion, you can take a look at it here.

Back to the birth flowers… so if you’re buying flowers as a birthday gift, the flower you choose can be based on the month of the birthday. January is the month of the carnation, bad luck for all those January birthdays. I have no idea why, but these are seemingly one of the less popular flowers, they always looked like crap roses to me when I was younger. February is all about violets and iris. I love these delicate but vibrant little flowers.

March is, somewhat predictably, the month of the daffodil. I absolutely love daffodils, I think they feel particularly special because they’re around for such a short period of time. They always remind me of Sefton Park in Liverpool, there are millions of bright yellow daffodils in the park for just a few short weeks each year. We have a constant stream of daffodils in our house every February because both Laurie and I love them. In April, you should opt for sweet peas. I love the look of these in the garden, we used to have some that grew up an arch before the terrible winds of 2016 dragged the arch over, but I’m not sure I’d like them as much as a flower in a vase.

May birthdays should be celebrated with lily of the valleys. Laurie always includes these when he buys flowers, but I’m not a huge fan of them. I always end up getting covered in the sticky sap and, well, they just remind me of funerals. June birthdays should be celebrated with roses, my personal favourite are yellow roses but you could go for any colour. July is the month for buying larkspur which I’ve never heard of but, having googled it, it turns out I’ve bought these before for the kitchen. I just buy things that look pretty, I never bother to find out what they are, this is one of the many ways I know I’m not really very good at being a grown up.

Gladiolas should be bought for August birthdays. I think these flowers look too bee-friendly to be inside, they look like they should be out in a meadow waiting for bees, I’m not sure I could bring myself to have them indoors. September is for forget-me-nots which are just such sweet lovely flowers, they look messy and wild which I think is beautiful. October is the month for marigolds which I think are pretty hideous so I’m glad I don’t have an October birthday. Orange is my least favourite of all the colours and this flower is way too orange.

Chrysanthemums are the flower for November which is another unfortunate birthday in my eyes, these are ugly flowers, right? And, of course, poinsettia is December’s chosen flower. I do love this flower and it looks so Christmassy, but I feel like you’d be overrun with them if you had a December birthday because the shops are full of them at that time of year.

Do you follow the rules above or do you just buy the prettiest flowers you can find (like I do)?

This is a collaborative post.