Flowers at Home: Top Tips for Fresh Blooms

MY FOUR TOP CUT-FLOWER TIPS:

ONE – Measure your blooms and cut them one and a half to two times the height of your vase.  TWO – Clear off all of the lower leaves on the flower and foliage stems that will fall below the neck of the vase (this will enable you to fit in more stems and make the arrangement look clean and professional as well as keeping material that will deteriorate out of the water in your vase). THREE – Cut stems at a 45 degree angle with a sharp knife or flower scissors. FOUR – Refresh the water in your vase or container every other day.

Some say “Don’t use scissors!” I wouldn’t hold this as a hard and fast rule, but try to ensure that you DO use sharp scissors and make as clean a cut as possible.  A blunt cutting pair of scissors actually crushes the cells, pinching the bottom of the stem so that they can’t take up as much water. Use a sharp blade to cut your flowers and they’ll live double the time.

Slicing the stem at least a 45 degree angle means that more of the flesh on the inside of the stem is exposed. This is what helps wick the water up the stem and into all of those  blooms.  Exposing as much of the interior pith to the water as you can helps it ‘drink’ more and keep better in your arrangement.

Use those sachets of flower food that come on the bunch of cellophane wrapped flowers from the supermarket.  Other tips you can try are to: add a drop or two of bleach to your water; put a copper coin in the bottom of your vase (copper acts as a natural fungicide) or if you don’t have flower food a spoonful of sugar as flower food.

After a few days, if you see them start to look a little droopy give them fresh water and a fresh angled cut.  If I have a vase of shop bought flowers on my table I go from a tall vase to a lower and lower one as the stems get shorter throughout the weeks.

There are lots of ‘Basic Flower Hacks’ that you can try which are outlined on pages such as this:  http://www.countryliving.com/gardening/garden-ideas/how-to/a5791/flower-hacks/

If you’d like to try and recreate this type of arrangement yourself have a look at the page link below for some tips and principles to follow. http://www.ehow.com/how_12339720_10-secrets-arrange-flowers-like-pro.html