Chive Studio · Birth Flowers
September Birth Flower: Aster and Morning Glory
September is that unsettling transitional month where summer dies, pumpkin spice aggressively invades every public surface, and everyone pretends to be excited about wearing corduroy. Naturally, the botanical world mirrors this existential dread with two birth flowers: the morning glory — a drama-queen vine that wakes up at dawn and shrivels into a sticky purple raisin before lunch — and the aster, a sharp, starburst-shaped bloom that stubbornly thrives while the rest of the garden gives up. We sculpted the aster because nobody needs a decorative object in their home that has the emotional endurance of a toddler and collapses before 1:00 PM.
What is the September birth flower?
September has two birth flowers: the aster, September's first flower — named from the Greek for “star,” standing for wisdom and patience, and the one Chive makes in ceramic — and the morning glory, its second.
September offers a stark choice between two entirely different coping mechanisms for autumn. First is the aster, named after the Greek word for "star," which looks like a tiny burst of manic late-summer energy. Second is the morning glory, a creeping vine famous for blooming at sunrise and dying by mid-afternoon. It is the ultimate floral personality test: are you a resilient, star-shaped overachiever, or are you a fleeting hot mess who needs a nap by midday?
Aster — September's first birth flower
The aster is September's first birth flower and the one Chive makes in ceramic — a star-shaped member of the daisy family that blooms late, right up to the first frost.
A cornerstone of the Asteraceae (daisy) family, asters have been dramatic for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks routinely burned aster leaves because they believed the pungent smoke would drive away venomous snakes and evil spirits — a wildly aggressive fumigation strategy for a pretty purple flower. Asters bloom late in the season when most other plants are rotting into compost, radiating a desperate "Look at me, I'm still relevant!" energy right up until the first frost.
Morning glory — September's second birth flower
The morning glory (Ipomoea) is September's second birth flower — a fast-growing trumpet vine whose flowers open in the morning and close by the afternoon, a symbol of affection and life's brevity.
Morning glory (Ipomoea) is a climbing vine that refuses to respect personal boundaries, choking out surrounding plants with relentless vigor. Its trumpets open under the dawn sun and wilt into damp purple socks the moment the afternoon heat hits. Adding to its chaotic resume, morning glory seeds contain a naturally occurring hallucinogen closely related to LSD — one Aztec and Maya priests prepared ceremonially. (The seeds and vines are also genuinely toxic, so file this under trivia, not suggestions.) It is a bizarre botanical package: a delicate blue flower that chokes your fence line, dies by the afternoon, and doubles as an ancient psychedelic.
September birth flower meaning
September birth flower meanings: wisdom, patience, and daintiness for the aster; affection and mortality — the brevity of life — for the morning glory.
Leave it to Victorian floriography to turn garden weeds into passive-aggressive insults. Victorians declared that the aster symbolizes "patience," "daintiness," and — in England, at least — "afterthought" — which is just polite 19th-century code for "I forgot your birthday, so here is a weed I found by the road." Morning glory, meanwhile, stands for "affection" and "mortality," mostly because its short lifespan serves as a cheerful reminder that everything you love will eventually wither and collapse before dinner.
What is an aster flower?
An aster is a composite flower of the Asteraceae family — dozens of tiny disk florets in the center ringed by ray florets — blooming late summer through first frost, in purple, pink, white, and red.
Botanically, an aster isn't a single flower, but a composite head made of dozens of tiny disk florets in the center surrounded by vibrant ray florets. In the wild, real asters are notorious for catching powdery mildew — a crusty white fungal disease that makes the bottom leaves look like they were dusted with stale flour. By October, a real aster plant usually resembles a leggy, fungal disaster sticking out of the mud.
The September Birth Flower at Chive
At Chive, we decided to eliminate the fungal mold and seasonal collapse by translating the aster into porcelain and stoneware. Hand-sculpting dozens of razor-thin, pointed petals requires an absurd amount of studio patience, but once fired in our kilns at 2,200°F, the clay vitrifies into indestructible stone. The result is a sharp, crisp starburst bloom that captures late-summer color forever, minus the snake-repelling smoke and dead bottom leaves.
We make the September birth flower in ceramic — the aster, shaped by hand, petal by petal, without molds, every razor-thin ray its own decision, in the form its month decided. It hangs from a keyhole in the back or sits on a shelf, ships gift-ready in a gift box, and holds September's whole assignment — the wisdom, the patience — without the mildew.
Whether you're a September baby celebrating a birthday or just someone trying to survive the back-to-school slump, the ceramic aster is the ultimate desk companion. It brings all the vibrant, star-shaped geometry of autumn into your living room, completely unbothered by heat, fungus, or the fleeting nature of time itself.
Chive Studio designs and handmakes ceramic flowers — designed in Toronto, made by hand since 2004. The collection is carried by 200+ art galleries and botanical gardens worldwide. Exhibiting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show since 2013; twice awarded the 5-star booth award — only two are given each year. Every birth flower ships gift-ready in a gift box to 40+ countries.
