May is the month when everything feels like it has finally arrived. The trees are full, the hedgerows turn white with blossom, and the garden is at its freshest. If your birthday falls in May, or you are buying for someone whose does, you have two beautiful flowers to choose from — and both carry meanings that suit the hopeful feeling of the month.
May’s birth flowers are the lily of the valley and the hawthorn. Here is the story behind each, along with May’s birthstone, and how they find their way into the jewellery.
May’s first birth flower — the lily of the valley
The lily of the valley is small and easy to miss, but once you have seen it you never forget it — tiny white bells hanging along a single stem, with a scent far bigger than the flower itself. It grows low in shaded corners and spring gardens.
Its meaning is sweetness, purity and happiness, and it has long been linked to the return of joy after a hard season. In France, sprigs of it are given on the first of May as a token of luck and happiness for the year ahead.
For all those reasons, the lily of the valley is one of the most loved of all the birth flowers — and an especially meaningful one to carry close.
May’s second birth flower — the hawthorn
If the lily of the valley is the garden flower, the hawthorn is the flower of the hedgerows. It bursts into clouds of white and pink blossom in May — so much so that it is often called the “May tree,” and its flowering has marked the arrival of the month for centuries.
The hawthorn stands for hope, happiness and beauty. There is something hopeful about it: it is the blossom that tells you summer is on its way, covering the lanes just as the days grow long.
Because it is the flower most tied to the month itself, the hawthorn makes a fitting choice for anyone proud to be born in May.
Two flowers, one month
Having two birth flowers to choose from is one of the nicest things about a May birthday. Some people are drawn to the delicacy of the lily of the valley, others to the hawthorn that gives the month its name, and many like to wear both together.
There is no right answer. The flower that means the most to you is the right one — and both belong equally to May.
May’s birthstone — the emerald
May’s birthstone is the emerald, one of the most recognisable green stones in the world. Its rich colour has been treasured since ancient times, and it has long stood for love, renewal and new beginnings — fitting for a stone tied to the greenest, freshest month of the year.
Green is the colour of May itself, which makes the emerald feel especially at home alongside the month’s flowers. The emerald pieces in the birthstone collection are set with genuine emerald — a real gemstone, never glass or imitation — which is a quality difference worth knowing.
A meaningful May birthday gift
If you are looking for a May birthday gift for someone special — a mum, a daughter, a friend, a grandmother — a birth flower piece is a thoughtful way to mark it. Rather than something set aside and forgotten, it is a small, personal thing she can wear every day, carrying her own birth month or the months of the people she loves.
That is the heart of why birth flower jewellery means so much. It is not only beautiful; it holds a connection to someone.
Wearing your May birth flowers
However you choose to mark a May birthday, the lily of the valley and the hawthorn both translate beautifully into a piece you can wear every day. Each birth flower design is my own — hand-drawn and unique to my studio in County Down. You can choose it as a hand-stamped pendant, struck by hand from my own metal stamp, or engraved onto a smooth disc, in sterling silver or gold filled.
You might choose a single lily of the valley pendant, pair both May flowers together, or add a May flower to a family piece alongside the birth months of the people you love. Every piece is made to order, so it can be exactly the flower, or flowers, that mean the most.
Carrying May close
If you would like to carry a May birth flower with you — your own, or someone else’s — you will find the full range in the birth flower collection at rebeccamayjewellery.com. Whichever flower speaks to you, I hope it helps you hold someone a little closer
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