Zodiac Flowers: Cancer

Being a Cancer means that you love your home. Follow our easy guide and consider growing these four birth flowers in your garden!

Born between June 21 and July 22? You’re a Cancer! The 4th sign of the zodiac begins on the Summer Solstice, and is ruled by the moon and water. Nothing can grow without water. It’s tangible and yet fluid and adaptable, coming together and pulling apart.

Cancer is all about the home. You love putting down roots, and you take great pleasure in the comforts of home and family. You lean more towards contemplation and inner awareness, empathising well with other people while also protecting yourself and loved ones. Once you open up, people feel like they can confide in you about anything. Without grounding, though, you become fearful and reclusive or absorb toxic emotions from the world around you.

Here are 4 Cancer birth flowers and their meanings!

White Rose for Homemaking

Like Cancers, white roses are delicate and universally adored. Being delicate is not a bad thing! The white rose is even more beautiful for its delicate white petals. Your delicateness comes from your empathy and it’s this quality that draws people to you and makes them feel comfortable.

White roses are also associated with marriages and new beginnings, the start of a new home and a new or burgeoning family. Like being delicate, homemaking has become maligned in popular culture, but it’s a valuable vocation. You build a safe space for your loved ones to thrive (and yourself, don’t forget that you need cherishing too). White roses are also the sort of gift that says “I’m thinking of you”, especially after a loss, the kind of thoughtful gesture you’re well known for.

Roses may be delicate, but they’re a lot easier to grow than people think. (Unless you want to compete in floral shows, but as a Cancer, you’re probably more happy to create a cosy garden for your family). Snowdrift is a hardy, easy to grow rose with classic, fragrant rose blossoms.

As a bouquet, you can have just white roses with baby’s breath for contrast, or mix with other roses.

Water Lily for Introspection

Water lilies are sometimes mistaken as lotuses, although they’re actually two different species, but they both have similar meanings. After a water lily flower is pollinated, the flower recedes beneath the water where seeds form. The seeds float to the surface to drift to their new home. Like water lilies, Cancers often need to retreat into the comfort of their homes to restore their energies before pushing back out into the world with fresh energy.

Water is also often a symbol of going deeply within oneself, going below the surface waves into the steadier water. As a Cancer, you may be very familiar with this meditation imagery!

Like you create a comfortable home for your family, water lilies shade and cool the water for the fish and frogs living in the pond. They also deter algae from growing, helping turn a murky pond into an inviting place.

A pond is an ideal place to grow water lilies, but you can also grow them in stock tanks or tubs on your patio. They may seem difficult to grow, but they’re actually quite dependable and easy to plant. (Kind of like a Cancer, right?)

Geranium for Housewarming

Because geraniums grow throughout the world, the geranium has different meanings, but are usually associated with positive and protective emotions (except for Victorians, but let’s forget about them). They share these traits with Cancer.

We often give geraniums as housewarming presents to delight and cheer up the new residents all year long. They’re also used in botanical remedies for healing.

As for colours, red geraniums are protective flowers. In folklore, people planted them next to the door to warn of approaching strangers. They also symbolize good health. White geraniums were believed to repel snakes.

To add cheer to your home, plant geraniums in garden beds, window boxes or containers. Geraniums encompass many unique varieties, so find the one that appeals most to you.

Morning Glories for Holding On

Because morning glory flowers bloom and die on the same day, they represent mortality and the finiteness of life, which, if you’re a Cancer, you’ve probably done some thinking about. But despite the finiteness of life, the morning glory keeps climbing its trellis, keeps blossoming, day after day throughout the whole growing season. Just as you keep growing.

Once you love, dear Cancers, you hold on to them, like the morning glory climbs and reaches across open spaces. And like Cancers firmly root in their homes, morning glories also firmly root where they grow. If you try to remove one, they can regrow from any section of their root left behind.

If you plan to bring morning glories into your garden, plant them in containers as they can spread quite fast, suffocating other plants, and they’re difficult to remove (which is a growing note, not a reflection on you!).

Since the blooms have such a short lifespan, cut them and enjoy them in a bouquet on that same day. Keep as much of the stem as possible so the morning glory doesn’t sink as they sit in a vase.

Not a fan of these four choices? You’re in luck. White flowers of any species can also represent Cancer.