Quick tips for cut flowers

Don't you hate it when you buy flowers and they seem to die instantly?  Here are a couple tips to help with that.

Quick tip of the day #1 -- Trimming the stems:

First off, don't just stick your bouquet in the water.  You need to cut the stems at a 45 degree angle.  A Dutch family trick is to also make an additional cut 1-2cm directly up the length of the stem from the bottom.  All of this exposes more of the water-absorbing portion of the stem to the water.  You also need to trim off any leafy debris and extra stems below where the water line will be.  Otherwise, they will decay and shorten your flowers' life.

Spray roses

Quick tip of the day #2 -- Conditioning the flowers:
To keep your flowers standing up straight, when you buy them put them in water for 4 hours after trimming the stems but before taking off the wrapping so that they are propped up straight in the vase.  After 4 hours, remove the wrapping, and your flowers will be in good shape!  You will notice the difference with flowers with softer stems such as tulips which have a tendency to droop at the stem when they wilt.

Tulips!

Quick tip of the day #3 -- Additives:

I've heard (and tried) everything from adding Sprite, pennies, and straight sugar to the water in order to extend the life of my bouquets.  None of those worked and I have personally had better experience with just plain water.  But some sources suggest additives both to feed the plant and also kill any bacteria.  That's why sometimes flowers come with little flower food/preservative packets attached.  If there is no handy packet, you can try this little recipe, provided by the UCDavis Division Agriculture and Natural Resources (scale up or down as needed):

Flower food/preservative:

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon bleach

in 1 quart of water

Make sure to replenish the water regularly and if you notice any gross moldy-type consistency, then completely replace the water, trimming the stems and cleaning the vase again before putting the flowers back in the vase

The flowers pictured are both bouquets from the party we had this weekend, now on day 3 of being in a vase.  As you can see, we are kind of obsessed with painted ceramic pitchers at the moment, both procured during our trip to Italy... pitchers make great vases!  (That is a decorating tip from Evan, my interior decorator/husband)