Flower Care Tips and Tricks
Every flower has different vase needs, but I wanted to go over some general care tips that will help to maximize your vase life on your cut-flowers. These are some super simple tips and tricks that will get you the most bang for your buck!
Get the flowers into cool, clean water as soon as you can. I have noticed there is a misconception among customers that flowers can survive out of water. They cannot, and their life will be significantly reduced without it. Some flowers do better out of water than others, but as a general rule you will want to get them into a vase with water as soon as you can after purchasing.
Change that water out every other day. Flowers are basically breathing through the water. As the flower gets older bacteria starts to grow in the water that reduces vase life. If you change out the water, clean the vase quick, and refill it with fresh water your flowers will thank you!
When you take the flowers out of the water to change it, give them a quick trim. Just cut a 1/2 inch or so off the bottom of the stems. This will give them a clean cut to drink water from. It reopens up the pathways for water to be brought up to the flower head.
Another misconception I see is that people think flowers like to be in sunlight. Potted plants like sunlight as they are actively growing and producing food for themselves. Direct sunlight to cut-flowers will kill them faster. It is just like putting a bowl of fruit in the sun, it ripens faster and rots quicker. Flowers are the same way. You want to keep them in a cool area away from sunlight for the longest vase life possible.
Some flowers continue to grow in the vase. They can grow inches actually, so if the flowers start to flop over in the vase, it is not because they are dying. They are just growing and the longer stem cannot support the weight of the flower. All you have to do is give that flower stem a bigger cut so the vase supports more of the weight. check out the video below for a demonstration.
Daffodils secrete poisonous sap when cut. They do best by themselves in arrangements. But, if they are mixed in, do not recut their stems. They will start leaking sap and it will kill the other flowers in the arrangement.
Some flowers like sunflowers and zinnias have small hairs on their stems. When in water these fall off and cause the water to get dirty faster. Be sure to really change the water on those flowers consistently.
If you have flower food on hand that is great. But, really it comes down to fresh, clean water and quick stem trim to give your flowers the best vase life possible!
Be sure to check out the video below of how I cut my tulips that get to top heavy!
