A few simple habits add a day or two to the life of cut flowers, sometimes more. Advice from Ljiljana Hrabar at Cvita Design, the florist in Trogir — for a bouquet you were given, gave, or bought for yourself.
None of this takes more than a minute.
Before the bouquet goes into a vase, cut the stems at an angle, two to three centimetres up, with a sharp knife or scissors. An angled cut gives the water more surface to reach. Repeat every two or three days.
Wash the vase well and change the water every day or every other day. Lukewarm or room-temperature water suits most flowers better than cold.
Strip any leaves that would sit below the waterline. Under water they rot quickly, cloud it and shorten the life of the whole bouquet.
Keep the bouquet away from direct sun, radiators, air conditioning and draughts — and away from the fruit bowl: ripening fruit gives off a gas that makes flowers fade sooner.
If a sachet of cut-flower food came with your flowers, stir it into the water. It feeds the flowers and slows the bacteria in the vase.
Take out any flowers that have faded and trim the rest. One wilted bloom speeds up the ones around it.
Some flowers ask for slightly different care.
Pull off any outer petals that are bruised. If a rose droops just below the head, recut the stem and stand the bouquet in deep water for an hour or two.
Hydrangeas drink a lot, through the stem and through the flower. If one wilts, submerge the whole head in cold water for half an hour to an hour, then return it to the vase.
Tulips keep growing in the vase and turn towards the light. Give them less water and turn the vase now and then to keep them upright.
If an arrangement is made in floral foam — in a basket or a box, for example — water the foam every day so it stays moist. Leave the flowers in the foam.
Dried flowers need no water. Keep them somewhere dry and out of direct sun so the colours last.
If you are carrying the bouquet further or cannot put it in water straight away, keep it in the shade and recut the stems before it goes into the vase.
How long, home remedies, arrangements and reviews — the short answers.
It depends on the flowers, the season and the care. With fresh water, trimmed stems and a cool spot, most bouquets look lovely for several days to a week, and some flowers for longer.
The usual causes are a warm spot or direct sun, water that is not changed, leaves in the water and stems that were not trimmed. Keeping it away from fruit helps too.
Home remedies are unreliable, and sugar without something against bacteria can cloud the water. Flower food, if you were given some, and frequent water changes work best.
If the flowers are set in floral foam, water the foam every day so it stays moist, and keep the arrangement away from sun and heat, as with a bouquet.
Submerge the whole flower head in a bowl of cold water for half an hour to an hour, then recut the stem and put it back in the vase. It often recovers completely.
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