Birthday flowers for moms are a time for celebrating, honoring, and showing appreciation for your mother, and flowers are a fantastic way to convey all of those cherished feelings.When you choose to give your mother flowers for her birthday, there are some important considerations to make. Consider her favorite flowers, the colors she likes, and the symbolic meanings of the flowers you select to ensure you pick the best floral arrangement. This guide will take you through everything you need to know about the best types of flowers to gift to moms, their symbolic meanings, and the key considerations around gifting flowers.
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Traditional Birthday Flowers for Moms:
Carnations
Carnations smell sweet and have beautiful ruffled petals, making them a great addition to any bouquet. Different colors have different symbolic meanings. Pink carnation flowers symbolize motherly love and motherhood in the language of flowers, making them the best choice for a bouquet for a mother’s birthday.
Roses
Roses are another go-to flower for mixed and uniform bouquets alike. They seem to be universally loved, so you really cannot go wrong with roses. The colors of roses have different symbolic meanings, and red roses hold an unwavering association with romantic love. So, these are the only ones that, in most cases, would not be an appropriate gift for your mother.
Lilies
Lilies are stunning blooms with a strong and sweet fragrance. Different varieties have different symbolic meanings but generally represent purity, fertility, and rebirth. Lily bouquets or arrangements containing lilies are stunning to look at and make great gifts for mothers. If your mother has cats, however, it’s best to avoid lilies which are highly toxic for felines.
Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums are popular flowers that typically bloom in fall and winter but are widely available throughout the year. They symbolize happiness, friendship, and well-being, and they’re available in various colors, shapes, sizes, and textures.
Elegant Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Orchids
Orchids of all colors and types are an attractive choice for your mother. They’re beautiful in bouquets, but live orchid plants make wonderful gifts, especially for a mother with a green thumb. Orchids have various symbolic meanings that vary based on the orchid’s color:
- Purple – Admiration and royalty
- Pink – Joy, grace, and femininity
- White – Purity and innocence
- Yellow – New beginnings and friendship
- Orange – Enthusiasm, boldness, and pride
- Green – Good fortune, health, longevity, nature, and blessings
Calla Lilies
Calla lilies have strong stems and stately trumpet-shaped flower blossoms. Most commonly, they’re found in white but also bloom in yellow, pink, purple, and an almost-black red. Symbolically, pink and yellow calla lilies are the most appropriate for a mother, representing admiration, appreciation, and gratitude.
Tulips
Tulips are beautiful flowers that are especially fun to see in spring. They come in an endless assortment of colors and variegations and have various interesting symbolic meanings. For example, yellow tulips represent positive thoughts, red tulips symbolize perfect love, and pink tulips symbolize happiness and confidence.
Freesias
Freesias emit a lovely floral fragrance that can quickly fill a room with the fresh feeling of springtime. Generally, freesias symbolize friendship and trust, but pink freesias represent motherly love, making them an excellent choice for your mother’s birthday bouquet.
Anemones
Anemone flowers have an alluring look with vibrant petals surrounding prominent, dark centers of black stamens. They are striking on their own and add much depth to mixed bouquets. Generally, anemones symbolize relaxation with their ability to “go with the flow” as they sway gently in the breeze. Specifically, white anemones symbolize sincerity, and purple anemones represent protection.
Stylish Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Peonies
Peony flowers are an excellent choice for a mother who has an impeccable style. They range in color from white to pink to deep red. These blossoms are elegant, beautiful, and whimsical at once. Generally, they represent love, happiness, romance, beauty, wealth, and honor. When gifted on a special occasion, peony flowers symbolize joy, best wishes, and goodwill.
Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are beautiful gifts in bouquets and as live plants that can be transplanted into an outdoor garden. Their flowers are naturally white or greenish in color but can be pink, purple, or blue, depending on the acidity of the soil in which they are planted. Hydrangea flowers symbolize grace, gratitude, beauty, abundance, peace, harmony, love, heartfelt emotion, understanding, and apology.
Gardenias
Gardenia bouquets add to the elegance of a room with their stately beauty, and they also decorate the air as they are, perhaps, most easily recognized by their signature scent. Gardenias have a strong, sweet, zesty, and slightly coconut-like fragrance. These white blossoms are delicate and intricate at once, symbolizing gentleness, purity, and joy.
Lilacs
Lilacs are both attractive and fragrant. Plus, their brief blooming period makes them all the more enjoyable when they are in season. Lilac flower symbolism varies based on the color of the blossoms.
- White – Innocence and purity
- Purple – Spirituality
- Blue – Tranquility and happiness
- Pink – Passion and love
Fragrant Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Lavender
Lavender flowers are the source of the lavender fragrance that is commonly used in soaps, lotions, perfumes, and aromatherapy. The scent and essential oils are said to provide both calming and healing properties. The flowers are lovely in bouquets but can also be gifted as living plants that can be grown and enjoyed indoors or outside. Lavender flowers symbolize calmness, grace, serenity, purity, silence, and devotion.
Jasmine
Jasmine flowers are also a popular fragrant bloom. They have a strong fragrance that is sweet and lightly citrusy. Their essential oils are also commonly included in perfumes, lotions, and soaps. Jasmine blossoms symbolize modesty, love, beauty, and sensuality.
Sweet Peas
Sweet peas are lovely, delicate flowers that blossom in clusters of pretty blooms. They emit a strong, sweet, and slightly spicy aroma that can add warmth to a bouquet and your mother’s heart. Sweet peas symbolize kind-heartedness, making them an excellent choice for a lovely and thoughtful mother.
Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle flowers have a strong and sweet scent that smells similar to honey. They symbolize pure happiness, sweetness, affection, the flames of love, and the tenderness of lost love. These fragrant yellow flowers are best included in mixed bouquets, where their unique blossoms can add visual and olfactory depth to the overall design.
Whimsical Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Dahlias
Dahlias are striking blossoms with countless geometrically arranged petals. They come in various vibrant colors and symbolize dignity, devotion, love, and beauty – all of which are perfect sentiments to be included in a mother’s birthday gift.
Nigella
Also called “love in a mist,” nigella plants produce beautiful flowers in a mist of wispy greenery. They symbolize the bonds that keep people close together in addition to beauty, harmony, and love.
Cosmos
Cosmos flowers are delicate, star-shaped blossoms that open up atop spindly, slender stems. They come in colors that range from yellow, orange, white, and light pink to deep red. Their neatly arranged petals symbolize beauty, joy, simplicity, balance, order, and harmony.
Dianthus
Dianthus flowers blossoms in pretty clusters of striking, vibrant flowers that can be solid, monochromatically gradient, or variegated. They represent admiration, gratitude, love, and affection.
Cheerful Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Sunflowers
Sunflowers symbolize adoration and loyalty, but they are also strongly associated with happiness and cheerfulness due to their large blossoms and vibrant yellow and gold colors. They’re lovely in all-sunflower bouquets and in mixed arrangements. Since they follow the sun, they can bring some sunshine to your mother’s birthday celebration as well.
Gerbera Daisies
Gerbera daisies are large, disc-shaped flowers that blossom in some of the most vibrant colors you can find in nature – colors so vibrant they almost don’t look real. As a result, they’re some of the most cheerful-looking flowers you can find, and they’re popular in birthday floral designs. In addition to cheerfulness, gerbera daisies symbolize loyal love, purity, and innocence.
Irises
Irises are beautiful blossoms that make stunning bouquets. They have various symbolic meanings, including elegance, wisdom, faith, charm, purity, compassion, ecstasy, and royal or important events.
Snapdragons
Snapdragons produce striking lance-shaped clusters of attractive flowers that blossom in a rainbow of different colors. They symbolize deception, concealment, graciousness, strength, and positive energy. If you admire your mother’s strength of character, then snapdragons are the perfect choice for celebrating her birthday.
Pansies
Pansies are lovely, cheerful flowers that are among some of the first to bloom in late winter and early spring. They have pretty, face-like flower blossoms that come in various colors and color combinations. They represent affection, love, and memories – the perfect flowers for honoring old family memories and celebrating the creation of new memories with your mother.
Sentimental Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Forget-Me-Nots
These pretty, petite, blue flowers symbolize remembrance and faithfulness, respect, and true love. They show a recipient that they are always in your thoughts and close to your heart.
Violets
Violet flowers symbolize everlasting love and several other meanings, such as spiritual wisdom and enlightenment, honesty, modesty, innocence, faithfulness, remembrance, protection, healing, peace, and determination.
Roses in Mom’s Favorite Color
If you know your mom’s favorite color, then you can’t go wrong with roses – or another type of flower – in that hue. Be careful when gifting red roses, as these are strongly associated with romantic love. If your mother’s favorite color is red, consider choosing a different type of red flower or even a mixed red bouquet.
Birth Month Flowers
Like birthstones, one or two different types of flowers officially represent the different months of the year. These are the official birth month flowers, and they’re a perfect gift for recognizing your mother’s birthday.
| January: carnation and snowdrop | July: larkspur and water lily |
| February: violet and primrose | August: gladiolus and poppy |
| March: daffodil | September: aster and morning glory |
| April: daisy and sweet pea | October: marigold and cosmos |
| May: lily of the valley and hawthorn | November: chrysanthemum |
| June: rose and honeysuckle | December: narcissus and holly |
Family Heirloom Flowers
Family heirloom flowers come from plants that are grown within your family. For example, you could give your mother a bouquet of roses from a rosebush in your garden – or you could even propagate the plant and give your mother a rosebush grown from your own as a symbol of your deep family connection.
Unique And Tropical Birthday Flowers for Mom:
Bird of Paradise
These alluring flowers resemble tropical birds with bright blue and orange plumage. They have several symbolic meanings, including paradise, freedom, joyfulness, excitement, anticipation, faithfulness, thoughtfulness, love, and a positive perspective on life.
Protea
Protea flowers have an alluring, other-worldly look, with spiky flower bracts surrounding large, central globes of stamens. In a bouquet, a protea flower is typically the center of attention. These beautiful yet strong-looking flowers symbolize courage.
Anthurium
Anthurium blooms can be included in bouquets, but they’re more commonly enjoyed in living anthurium plants that bloom from season to season. Heart-shaped anthurium blossoms can be white, red, or pink. Anthuriums symbolize hospitality, happiness, and abundance. This tropical delight is both easy to grow and fantastic to look at.
Stargazer Lilies
Stargazer lilies have star-shaped flowers featuring deep pink petals rimmed with white. They have a sweet fragrance and symbolize abundance and prosperity.
Kangaroo Paw
Kangaroo paws are unusual flowers that are not commonly used in bouquets. If your mother has a unique personality and taste, she might love a bouquet with kangaroo paw flowers. The pretty flower clusters have a shape that resembles a cute little kangaroo paw. They symbolize individuality and uniqueness and are the perfect choice for a mother who likes to follow her own path.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Birthday Flowers for Moms
When choosing flowers for your mom, consider the following factors:
- Color – First, consider the colors your mother likes and look for bouquets featuring those colors. Additionally, remember that different colors have different symbolic meanings in flowers.
- Personal Taste – Is your mother a maximalist, or does she have a more minimalistic taste? Does she prefer classically elegant looks, rustic style, or whimsical designs?
- Fragrance – Consider whether there is a floral fragrance your mother particularly likes or if she has allergies or is sensitive to scents.
- Symbolism – Think about the symbolic meanings of the flowers in the bouquet you give your mother. This can be especially important when giving a bouquet containing one type of bloom.
- Budget – Of course, it’s also important to consider your budget. Bouquets can range greatly in price from around $20 to thousands. Choosing locally sourced, seasonal flowers helps to keep the price lower.
Tips for Gifting Birthday Flowers for Moms
When giving your mother a bouquet of flowers, you can personalize the gift by asking your florist to modify an existing design to contain your mother’s favorite color or flower.
Additionally, be sure to include handwritten flower card messages so that heartfelt birthday wishes for your mother accompany the flowers.
You can further personalize a bouquet by combining it with another gift idea, such as a bottle of your mother’s favorite wine, a box of her favorite chocolates, bath salts, a bottle of perfume, an accessory, or a piece of jewelry.
Birthday Flowers for Mom FAQs:
What Are the Best Colors for Birthday Flowers for Moms?
Pink flowers symbolize gentle affection, admiration, and femininity. It’s the perfect color for flowers for your mother’s birthday. If you know your mom’s favorite color, though, or her favorite color of flowers, then you can choose a different color. Generally, red flowers – especially red roses – are inappropriate for a mother’s gift since they are strongly associated with romantic love.
What Flower Best Represents a Mother?
Pink carnations symbolize motherhood and a mother’s love, and pink freesias symbolize motherly love, making these blossoms the perfect choice for mothers.
Can I Combine Different Types of Flowers in a Bouquet?
While a bouquet of a single type of flower can be stunning, different types of flowers are commonly combined to create a more exciting look or convey a more complex meaning through various symbolic meanings.
How Long Do Birthday Flowers Typically Last?
With proper care, such as regularly changing out the water in a vase, a bouquet of cut flowers can last seven to 12 days. For more, see our in-depth guide on how to make fresh-cut flowers last longer.
Send Your Mother Love on Her Birthday With a Bouquet (Almost) as Beautiful as Her
With flowers, you can wish your mother a happy birthday while showing her how much you love, admire, appreciate, and care about her. When you choose flowers as a gift for your mother’s birthday, you can’t choose wrong!
For more, see our in-depth guide to the best birthday flowers for him and the best birthday flowers for her.
Andrew Gaumond
Editorial Director | andrew@petalrepublic.com | Full Bio
Andrew is the Editorial Director at Petal Republic. He holds a BSc degree in Plant Sciences and has trained professionally at leading floristry schools in London and Paris. In amongst overseeing a global editorial team, Andrew's a passionate content creator around all things flowers, floral design, gardening, and houseplants.
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