Keeping Cut Flowers Fresh...

Walk into any room, any time of the year, and if there are fresh cut flowers they will surely be the first thing that grab your eye.  Fresh flowers can brighten any room but the trick is making them last!  When I owned my own home, I grew a cutting garden and I would keep cut flowers around as long as Mother Nature and the Utah weather would allow.  I have learned a few tricks to keeping them fresh a bit longer.  With spring just around the corner, here are some of the methods I have used and a few others I have borrowed from various gardening books:
First, don't cut the flowers with scissors.  Use a knife (I had one I used just for flowers).  Because of the bulkiness of the stems, scissors will crush the vascular system of the flowers causing improper water uptake.  Cut on an angle.  Then, they must go right away into prepared water.  Try these ideas and see what works best for you:

  1. Dissolve one or two aspirin into the water, then add 1/2 tsp. bleach per quart.
  2. Mix one part lemon-lime soda to three parts water, then 1/2 tsp. bleach per quart.
  3. Try 2 tsp. lemon juice with 1 Tbsp. sugar and 1/4 tsp bleach per quart of water.
  4.  Now here's a weird one, but according to Plantea.com, 2 oz. of Listerine mouthwash per gallon of water will act as a plant food and is acidic, so it helps fluid move into the stems.  I haven't tried this one...as we all have such great breath in my family, we have no need of mouthwash, ha ha!    
I prefer not to use the little packets that come from the florists...chemicals, ugh.
Make sure your vases are clean and free of mold and calcium deposits.  Check the water everyday and if it gets cloudy, change immediately....but you will need to snip about 1/4 inch off the stems to re-open ends before placing the flowers back into the clean water.

Hopefully, you will give one or two of these methods a try.  Please send comments to our blog...let us know what works best for you...and enjoy those blooms.  Happy Spring!  

Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Flowers  
Plant food instruction courtesy of Plantea.com