Sunflowers, a birthday flower of July 6th

Sunflowers are one of the birthday flowers of July 6th annually. They are also the birthday flower of July 20th, August 2nd, August 5th and August 31st. What a beautiful flower to have as your birthday flower! So bright and happy, invoking sunshine and cheer.

In Japan, sunflowers are one of the iconic flowers of summer, but they do bloom in Autumn too. There are summer sunflowers and autumn sunflowers. The summer sunflowers most typically bloom from mid-July to September, but you can sometimes find sunflowers as early as June. Autumn sunflowers most typically bloom around the end of September to about mid-October. But there is a place in Saitama Prefecture that grows them until November! 

In the Japanese language of flowers, they mean "I only look at you", "admiration" and "adoration". All meanings I feel are very apt for these beautiful, bright "sun" flowers. Despite not being a big fan of Japanese summer, one of the "summer" things I look forward to most is sunflowers. Thankfully, I am already finding them in bloom in Saitama this early in July and there are even more to come in the coming weeks.