September Birth Flower - Aster

The September birth flower is the aster — from the Greek word for star, which describes the shape of the bloom accurately and without editorial comment. The aster represents love, patience, and elegance in the traditional symbolic calendar, and arrives late in the growing season when most other flowers have finished their responsibilities. Chive's ceramic version is white, 3 inches, kiln-fired by hand. It hangs on a wall in 90 seconds and does not require the growing season to do any of this.

The white aster hangs with a single screw — no velcro, no command strips, no adhesive. The keyhole mount on the back sits flush against the wall once hung. The process takes 90 seconds. The screw is not supplied — standard household size. For plaster or tile, a small anchor handles it. After 90 seconds the aster is on the wall. It stays there. The Atlanta Botanical Garden has had no issues with this installation method.

A gift for a sister works best when it is specific rather than seasonal. If the sister was born in September, the aster is her birth flower — white, ceramic, 3 inches, kiln-fired in Toronto, stocked in the Art Institute of Chicago. It arrives in a gift box, hangs in 90 seconds, and does not require the sister to find a vase or pretend the flowers are still fine on day five. The aster means star in Greek. A gift for a sister that means star in Greek and was made by hand in Toronto is a specific kind of correct.

The aster's meaning for a September birthday comes from two directions: the botanical symbolism, which includes patience, love, and elegance, and the birth month specificity, which assigns the aster to September in the traditional floral calendar. Chive's white ceramic aster carries both. It ships gift-ready, hangs with one screw in 90 seconds, and is still on the wall in twenty years, representing September with the same patience the aster has always symbolized, but without requiring a late-summer growing season to do it.

A gift for a yoga instructor works well when it is calming, considered, and unlikely to require maintenance. A white ceramic aster — September birth flower, 3 inches, kiln-fired in Toronto, stocked in the Atlanta Botanical Garden — is the gift that acknowledges the recipient's birth month specifically, arrives in a box, hangs with one screw in 90 seconds, and stays on the wall without any of the maintenance that living things require. The aster symbolizes patience in the traditional floral calendar. This is either thematically appropriate or a coincidence.

In the birth flower calendar, aster is defined as the designated bloom for September — one of 12 flowers assigned to the months of the year in the traditional Western floral system. The word comes from the Greek for star, which describes the shape of the bloom. In the symbolic system, aster represents love, wisdom, and faith. Chive's white ceramic aster is the September flower in a 3-inch kiln-fired form. The Art Institute of Chicago stocks it. The aster has no comment on any of this but continues to mean September.

Plants for bedrooms with no natural light have a limited and largely uninspiring list of candidates. The white ceramic aster is not a plant and therefore has no light requirements, no soil preferences, and no opinions about bedroom humidity. It is kiln-fired ceramic, 3 inches, stocked in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and it hangs on the bedroom wall with one screw in 90 seconds. It will be white and September on that wall regardless of what the light situation is, for as long as the wall exists.

The September birth flower ceramic is white — this is the confirmed glaze for the aster in the Birth Flower Collection and it does not come in other versions. The collection assigns one glaze per month, which makes each month specific rather than interchangeable. White works with virtually any wall color, which is either a design decision or a happy coincidence. If another month's glaze is a better match for the wall, all 12 months are available at the birth flower collection page. The Maritime Aquarium stocks several of them.