June Birth Flowers: Rose and Honeysuckle

The June birth flowers are the rose and the honeysuckle. The rose needs no introduction: a prickly shrub with layered, scented flowers in almost every color. Honeysuckle is a twining vine with clusters of narrow, tube-shaped flowers. By tradition the rose stands for love, with each color adding its own shade of meaning, and honeysuckle for devoted affection.

What is the birth flower for June?

The rose is June's main flower, and honeysuckle is its partner. On some older charts honeysuckle stood alone: an American table of the months printed in 1913 gave June the honeysuckle. No official body ever fixed the list, and today's charts keep both. Our guide to birth flowers by month shows all twelve pairs.

Both are flowers of early summer, which is the plain reason they belong to June.

Type in a birth date to see its flowers, its birthstone, its zodiac sign and the day of the week it fell on.

Rose: what it looks like and when it blooms

Roses are the genus Rosa, more than 100 species of woody shrubs and climbers. According to NC State Extension, they are native to the temperate and subtropical Northern Hemisphere, including North America, Europe and Asia.

• Size. From 1 to 8 feet tall (30 cm to 2.4 m), depending on the kind.
• Flower. Wild roses have five petals. Garden roses have been bred into full, many-petaled forms in white, yellow, orange, pink, red and purple.
• Stems. The sharp points are prickles, not true thorns.
• Season. Summer, with the main flush in June in much of the United States and Britain.

Gardeners sort roses into three groups: species roses, which are the wild kinds; old garden roses, bred before the 1860s; and modern roses, bred since. The rose is the national floral emblem of the United States.

Honeysuckle: what it looks like and when it blooms

Honeysuckle is the genus Lonicera, about 160 species of shrubs and climbers spread across the Northern Hemisphere. Three are worth knowing.

• Common honeysuckle or woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum). The honeysuckle of European hedgerows and of British tradition. Its flowers open white or cream and turn yellow, often flushed pink. The scent is strongest after dark, when moths pollinate it.
• Trumpet or coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). Native to the southeastern United States. Its red and orange tubes have no scent but draw hummingbirds. It climbs 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 m).
• Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). The white-and-yellow vine many Americans remember from childhood. NC State Extension calls it highly invasive in the United States and advises against planting it.

The name comes from the old habit of sucking the sweet nectar from the base of a picked flower.

What do the June birth flowers mean?

The meanings come from the Victorian language of flowers, which had many dictionaries and no agreed version. The table compares Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (London, 1884) with the readings The Old Farmer's Almanac gives now.

The yellow rose is the clearest case of a meaning that turned around. It was a sign of jealousy in 1884 and is a cheerful, friendly flower now. Greenaway's book lists more than thirty kinds of rose, each with its own message, which shows how much this code depended on the book you owned.

History added other layers. In fifteenth-century England the white rose was the badge of York and the red rose the badge of Lancaster, and their struggle for the throne became known as the Wars of the Roses. Honeysuckle was planted beside houses, where folklore said it kept bad luck away.

Read all of it as tradition. A birth flower is a compliment to a date, not a portrait of a person.

Are roses and honeysuckle safe around pets?

• Roses. The ASPCA lists roses as non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses. The prickles can scratch.
• Honeysuckle. NC State Extension warns that the berries of Japanese honeysuckle are poisonous if eaten in large amounts, with signs that include vomiting and diarrhea. Do not let children eat honeysuckle berries of any kind.

Roses and honeysuckle both have a long past in perfume and folk remedies. That is history; this page does not suggest eating or drinking either one.

How to give June's birth flowers

• A bouquet. Roses are the obvious choice and are sold all year. Choose the color for its message: red for a partner, pink for admiration, yellow for a friend.
• A plant. A potted or bare-root rose lasts for years. For a gardener in the United States, a native trumpet honeysuckle is a good climbing gift.
• A drawing, print or tattoo design. A rose is usually drawn as a spiral of overlapping petals on a stem with prickles and toothed leaves. Honeysuckle is drawn as a cluster of long, curved tubes with stamens that reach past the petals.
• With the stone. June's birthstones are pearl, alexandrite and moonstone. White roses with pearls is the classic pairing. See our June birthstone page.

How to keep cut roses fresh

Roses have a shorter vase life than sturdier flowers such as carnations, so care matters. University of Illinois Extension advises:

1. Cut about 1 inch (2.5 cm) from each stem with a clean, sharp knife or shears. Cut rose stems under water.
2. Remove leaves that would sit below the water line.
3. Use a clean vase, warm water and flower food mixed as the packet directs.
4. Change the water every two to three days and trim the stems again. A rose that goes limp needs a fresh cut.
5. Keep the vase away from heat and direct sun, at 65 to 72°F (18 to 22°C).

In the garden, roses want full sun and rich, well-drained soil. Remove faded flowers through the season.

Next in the calendar: July's larkspur and water lily. Before it: May's lily of the valley and hawthorn.