A Beginner’s Guide to Preserving Flower Bouquets: Three Easy Ideas to Try

Some Cut Flowers Last Many Weeks
Cut flowers aren’t always going to last. Sometimes, though, if you take good care of them, you can keep them looking fresh and happy for weeks, even a few months if you’re really careful about it.

It will depend on how they were cut, and the sort of flowers that are in the bouquet. Here we’ll explore several beginner’s tips to help you preserve your cut bouquets longer.

1. Plant Food

One of the first things to do when you’re preserving flower bouquets is to assure the flowers have proper “food”. Just because cut flowers have been trimmed from their root systems doesn’t mean they’re “dead”. Think of them as “on hospice” when they’re in a bouquet. So you can extend how long they live with plant food packets.

Also, there is the potential to graft cut flowers into other plants, and see them continue to flourish over time; but that’s an advanced step. Before you get to that point, be sure you can get the most out of a bouquet through proper watering and flower food.

2. Cut Stems

So when it comes to cutting stems, florists don’t always do the best job. If you cut the flowers diagonally, at about a 45-degree angle, that will expose the greater surface area in the stem for water and plant food absorption, ultimately leading to bouquets that remain looking fresh for longer. Look at the stems of your bouquet to see where things stand, and augment accordingly.

3. Where You Place the Bouquets

If you place the hardiest flowers with the best plant food and water in the vase under a blistering hot sun, they’re going to wilt pretty quickly. Flowers like light, but they don’t like being smothered by it; there’s a balance, follow the link to figure out what you can do here.

Keep in mind that some species of flowers are going to prefer light over others. You want to know what the flowers you’re trying to preserve want in their natural environment, and how they respond in a synthetic environment with cut stems.

It’s also considerable to understand where the flowers were at in their life cycle before they were cut. For the most part, they’re going to be harvested at an ideal time for maximum results.

However, especially with larger operations, cut flowers can have a varied time wherein they were separated from the parent plant. If you can tell whether the flowers are further along in their cycle, or not as far along, this will inform how you take care of them.

Making Cut Flowers Last as Long as Possible

Where bouquets are placed, how they are cut, and the sort of plant food you give them are three things that definitely contribute to the longevity of cut flowers. You can make them last longer than you would have expected, but it’s generally going to require that you make a few strategic choices as regards their care.