The 12 Flowers of The Months

Month by month, we as a society have symbols, gestures and celebrations that signify where we are in the calendar year. From zodiac signs to gemstones of the month, we follow calendar traditions throughout the world. Flowers of the months are no different and offer living seasonal colours for all occasions. Sentimental as we are, we have milestone celebrations for emotional, mental, physical, political, and social sentiment and meaning, including, for example, Independence Day (Fourth of July) celebrations with explicit symbols and colors…and even flowers…that we implement as symbols of our celebration.

We want to be creative, as well, when it comes to honoring loved ones on their birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, birthings, marriages, and numerous holidays and events and successes. So we come up with creative ideas, such as giving flowers of the months every month for a year, or fruit of the months every month for a year, etc..

Flower Traditions

We give flowers, bouquets and sprays for funerals, and/or memorial plants and trees for lost loved ones. We place and plant flowers for weddings, for hospital guests, for festivals and fairs. And we offer simulated flower arrangements—candy bouquets, chocolate roses, and others—for the same events, occasions, and milestones.

So a most loving gesture would include the giving of one or more of the flowers of the months…to appeal to the receiver’s heart or ego or sense of tradition, even. So with love and creativity, with thoughtfulness and a minimum of pre-planning, we can grace the persons, their homes, or their relevant environs with the following fun examples:

 •  Carnations for January housewarmings;
 •  Irises for February bar exam successes;
 •  Daffodils for March theatre cast parties;
 •  Daisies for April birthday bashes;
 •  Lilies-of-the-Valley for May Academy Awards dinners;
 •  Roses for June graduation parties;
 •  Sunflowers for July fair day picnics;
 •  Peridots for August baby showers;
 •  Asters for September anniversary celebrations;
 •  Snap-dragons for October art gallery shows;
 •  Chrysanthemums for November harvest rituals; and
 •  Orchids for December retirement parties.

These are ideas for traditional events and reasons for using flowers of the months, but if you look around a bit, you will find more original uses for the flowers of the months. For instance, one website offers each of the flowers of each of the months in drawing form—so kids can color in the pages (which are printable) and learn the months of the year in the process. Another instance is found with the folks who make flower cookies and put them on sticks and collect them into bouquets. If you look further, you will find more wonderful, unique ideas, and thinking harder, you can come up with your own ideas for uses of the ever-popular flowers of the months.