At Aroma Flowers, one of our FAQs is how to care for fresh flowers. It feels lovely to receive fresh flowers, so you would want to keep your flowers alive and looking vibrant for as long as possible. It takes a bit of effort as flowers are living things too, they need love and care as much as anyone else does.
Here is 6 tips to keep your flowers fresh and alive for much longer.
Tip #1:
Clean vase, change the water entirely every 2-3 days.
Clean and bacteria-free vase is great for the flowers’ lifespan. Pretty vases make really nice Instagram pictures. Take your blooms out of their bouquet, and place them in a vase filled with clean water as the stems need to be hydrated.
Flowers drink a lot of water! By changing the water in the vase every few days, even if the water hasn’t been used up, will help keep your flowers fresh longer (and avoid that horrid rotten smell that develops if you let them sit a long time).
Tip #2:
Use sharp scissors when cutting and remove leaves under the water and wilting flowers.
If you use dull old scissors or snips to trim your flowers, you are often smashing, and thus damaging, the tissue/cells at the end of the stem. Damaged cells cannot absorb water as effectively as healthy cells. Sharp scissors ensure a clean cut that leaves cells unharmed (except the poor few that inevitably get sliced).
Remove all the lower leaves, especially if they’re in the water, as none should be present there. Leaves decay much quicker underwater than they do above. Decaying leaves will emit bacteria that could destroy your flowers.
Flowers bloom and wilt at different times so when you observe that a bloom has begun to wilt, remove it quickly, and hence this will avoid spreading bacteria to the other flowers. When you remove a wilting bloom, you’re giving a chance for the others to live longer.
Tip #3:
Trim at least a 2cm of stem off your flowers at a 45 degrees before you put them in a vase and each time you change the water.
By cutting the stems just before placing them in water again, you expose fresh tissue that can suck up the water much more efficiently. When you trim stems or when you change the water in the vase a few days later, you remove tissue at the tips that may be breaking down and once again expose fresh tissue that absorbs more water.
Tip #4:
Use “flower food” for most flowers.
While changing the water every other day or so is often just as effective for making flowers last longer, adding flower food packets that come with packaged flowers are beneficial as well. This is especially true if you’re forgetful/lazy and won’t be changing your flowers’ water regularly. In addition to “feeding” the bouquet, these food packets contain a bactericide that keeps the water fresh for a day or two longer. You can make your own flower food by adding about 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vinegar to your vase before adding about 1 litre of tap water. It is worth noting that there are a few flowers that actually do NOT like flower food in the vase. Some of these are: zinnias, sunflowers and glads.
Tip #5:
Keep your flowers away from heat and bright light.
Sometimes people think they should set their vase of flowers in a sunny windowsill since that is where a plant would be happiest. However, cut flowers are actually the opposite of potted plants. They are at their peak of perfection. Sun and heat will encourage them to “mature” and thus quicken their demise. Instead, keep your cut flowers in a cool dark spot if you would like them to last as long as possible.
Tip #6:
Avoid sitting your flowers beside ripening fruit or vegetables, especially bananas and apples.
Ripening fruit gives off an odourless invisible gas called ethylene. This gas is harmless to humans, but rather deadly to flowers. The science behind it is as such: in the plant world, flowers are the precursor of fruit. Once a flower pollinates, it begins to develop into a fruit so it can form seeds and start the plant life cycle over again. Ethylene is the gaseous hormone in the plant that induces that flower to drop its petals and become a fruit. As the fruit matures, it continues to give off ethylene. When you sit your vase of flowers next to ripening fruit, you’re exposing them to this gas and they will decide they’d better drop their petals the way Mother Nature intended.
