We hate waste. Especially when it's flowers! So whether you have just received a lovely bouquet of fresh blooms or just put one together yourself, follow our tips to help make each bouquet last!
- Water. It seems obvious but larger arrangements and certain types of flowers will go through more water than others. So always make sure your vase has enough water.
- Speaking of water, you want it to be clear of any debris. The part of the stem that will be submerged in water needs to have the leaves removed. Anything underwater creates bacteria and clogs the stem.
- Those food packets that come with grocery store bouquets really work. Mix it in! You need one packet per pint of water. If you don't happen to have any of those on hand you can add a splash of hydrogen peroxide to keep bacteria from forming.
- Keep your flowers in a cool or dark spot. Warm sunshine will quickly shorten the lifespan of your cut flowers.
- Keep your arrangement away from your fresh fruit. When fruit ripens it emits an odorless gas, ethylene. This gas will cause your flowers to age much more quickly just as the sun does to your face!
- Similar to the reason above, if you notice some of your flowers are going bad, remove them from your arrangement. Aging flowers in an arrangement will cause other flowers to go bad from the increased ethylene.
- If you're trimming flowers for you own bouquet be sure to use sharp scissors so you don't damage or mash the stem.
- If you store your arrangement in the fridge at night when you go to bad it will last a lot longer!
Myths:
- Add pennies, aspirin or sugar to keep your flowers fresh.
This doesn't work. However, you can add sugar but will need to mix with Clorox to counterbalance the bacteria growth from the sugar. Flowers don't need the food as much as they need the anti-bacteria.
- You need to retrim the stems.
Nope. If you're adding chemicals to manage the bacteria you do not need to retrim the stems.
- Cut the stem at an angle.
The same amount of capillaries are exposed with a flat cut as an angled cut.
- Woody stems need to be mashed or beaten.
Does hammering your feet make you run faster? No. Mashing or beating woody stems does not help increase water flow but only creates more bacteria in the water.
Photos by Adrienne Maples Photography
