5 Tips for looking after your cut flowers.
Tips to keep your flowers looking fresh for longer!
Having started doing local cut flower deliveries during lockdown (whilst weddings have been on hold), I know that lots of you are enjoying Clementine Moon bunches and bouquets in your own home. I thought I’d share my top 5 tips for keeping your flowers looking fresh, so whether you’ve received them as a thoughtful gift or treated yourself, you can be sure to get the most from them.
Tip 1 - Use a clean vase
My very first tip is to start with a gorgeous vase to display your flowers in and make sure its sparkly and clean. Any bacteria that gets into the water can hinder vase life for your flowers so this is really important! When choosing your vase think about the type of flowers you want to display, make sure it is big enough to display the stems and also give them room to breathe. If you have received a gift bouquet, they will arrive in a jar filled with water, but will need to be transferred to a bigger jar or vase to keep them looking beautiful. Think about how tall your flowers are and choose a vase that compliments that, for example shorted stemmed spring flowers look best in a shorter squat vase, whereas a tall bouquet of one flower such as delphiniums can look really lovely in a taller cylinder vase.
Tip 2 - Strip the stems
If stray leaves get into the water source, they can encourage that pesky bacteria to increase and impact the vase life of your beautiful flowers. Before you get ready to arrange your flowers in your vase, make sure you strip any leaves that will be below the water line. This will ensure the water stays as clean as possible and keep your flowers happy.
Tip 3 - Re-cut the stems
Re-cutting your flower stems on an angle before you put them in the vase is an important step. The angle gives a bigger surface area and so helps the flowers to take up water efficiently. If you cut the stems straight then they can rest on the bottom of the vase and inhibit the flowers from being able to have a drink, not great news if you want happy stems!
Tip 4 - Clean Water
The thing that flowers love more than anything else is clean, fresh water. So make sure to refresh your vase water at least every other day to keep your flowers looking lovely for the longest amount of time. If you are able to, changing the water every single day would be ideal. Throw away the old water and give the vase a clean before re-filling it with fresh. This helps stave away the bacteria that can build up at the bottom of the vase and the flower stems. Make sure you re-cut the stems before putting them back into the vase.
Tip 5 - Keep out of Sunlight
Your flowers will be happiest kept in a cool environment away from direct sunlight and draughts. Whilst you might be tempted to show off your beautiful flowers on a windowsill, they really won’t thank you for it. In the same way don’t keep the vase too near a radiator or fire. Fruit is another thing to steer clear on, as it gives of ethylene gas. This gas is known as the fruit ripening hormone and will have the same effect on your flowers, causing them to reach the end of their life cycle quicker.
Clementine Moon is a wedding and events florist creating effortlessly elegant floral design for stylish flower-filled weddings and events across Bristol, Bath, North Somerset, Somerset, Wiltshire, The Cotswolds and Gloucestershire. You can find out more about weddings flowers here.