10 Plants that Symbolize Love (2024)

Every plant is beautiful and touches our hearts in a unique way, but some just strike us as especially romantic. Sometimes they tease us with fragrant scents, and other times charm us with eccentric leaves. Here are ten plants that symbolize love and make endearing gifts for Valentine’s Day:

Rose Bushes

Roses are plants that need no introduction. It doesn’t matter how much they’ve been discussed and romanticized; they never fail to impress, even if you received them from your sweetheart last year. While cut roses are the classic plants that symbolize love, rose bushes bring your love into the garden to stay. You can transplant and enjoy them as a perennial gift.

Hoya Kerrii

Hoyas are a family of tropical succulents with vining, trailing leaves. Many hoya cultivars also display porcelain-like pink flowers with a strong fragrance. The Hoya kerrii is a special variety with heart-shaped leaves, which are typically sold as single-leafed “living Valentines.” They unmistakably symbolize love at this time of year and may soon become one of your favorite houseplants, producing beautiful vines for many years to come.

String of Hearts/Pearls

The String of Hearts is a hanging houseplant with daintier foliage and supple vines. It features green, heart-shaped leaves with silver markings. Its trailing cousin, the String of Pearls, has small spherical leaves that resemble their namesake. Both plants cascade over the edge of their pots like a waterfall, making them alluring gifts and ideal houseplants for hanging baskets.

Anthurium

With bright red heart-shaped spathes that are shiny like lipstick, the anthurium is one the most sensuous houseplants. Like the flower bracts of a poinsettia, these spathes act like flowers in a natural rainforest, attracting pollinators with bright red markings. But since the spathes are technically colored leaves, not flowers, they last a long time, between 2-3 months. Better yet, the anthurium produces them throughout the year.

Jade Plant

This charming succulent symbolizes good luck, an essential attribute in any long-lasting relationship. These plants are actually trees and have smooth, grey bark around their trunks, but they grow slowly and remain compact throughout their whole long life, just the right size for your sweetheart’s desk or bedside table.

Chinese Evergreen

These resilient houseplants feature leaves in a range of colors from greens to whites to reds. They’re known to be an easy plant to care for, preferring warmth and humidity but tolerating dry air, dry soil, and drought. With such enduring strength, they’ve come to symbolize family and longevity in Chinese culture, arguably the two most important rewards of a long-term relationship!

Lavender

Vying with the rose for its romantic reputation, lavender is yet another plant that symbolizes love. The fragrance alone is famous for its soothing capabilities, and the color speaks of elegance and refinement. It’s possible to keep lavender indoors if you give it a spot with lots of bright, direct sunlight. However, it’s also a gift that can take root in your garden, giving you fragrant blossoms for many summers to come.

Miniature Roses

‘Mini” roses have the same layered flowers as a standard rose, but the bush remains small. That means your loved one can keep them in a sunny place as a houseplant, or they can mix them into your perennial beds, rock garden, or the borders along a garden pathway. From an aesthetic perspective, their compact stature also gives them a unique charm.

Moth Orchid

The orchid is another sensuous flower known for its rare beauty. They used to be thought of as difficult houseplants to grow, reserved for botanists and rare plant collectors. But the Moth Orchid is one variety that most beginners can handle. They bloom in late winter and through the spring, making them an ideal gift to symbolize love on Valentine’s Day. With their long-lasting wing-shaped blooms, they’ll continue to intrigue your partner throughout the year.

Cyclamen

This petite flower features several stems of dainty blossoms. Pink, purple, red, and white are the most common colors—all very on-theme for Valentine’s Day! The blooms rise up from emerald leaves like the first bulbs after the snow melts. As a Mediterranean plant, cyclamen go dormant during the hot summer, re-emerging from fall to spring. In the past, this plant was often given to children as a gift. It is said that they symbolize sincerity and unconditional love.

All of these plants symbolize love, but often, it’s when we give or receive one that they take on special meaning.

If you’re looking for more gift ideas for Valentine’s Day or any special occasion, visit our garden centers in Northwest Arkansas!