How to Make Flowers Last Longer

You can make cut flowers last longer, whether you're cutting them from your own garden, purchasing them from a store, or ordering from a florist.

Popular fresh cut flowers from florists include:

• Alstroemeria
• Aster
• Baby's breath (gysophila)
• Carnation
• Hydrangea
• Lilac
• Lisianthus
• Orchid
• Peonie
• Ranunculus
• Rose
• Stock
• Sunflower
• Tulip

Floral stems are typically packaged with protective sleeves and a sachet of floral food with flower care instructions. If you ordered online, the stems are shipped fresh with closed buds and need two to three days to fully open.

Pros recommend that when planning flowers for a special occasion, select your delivery date with this in mind. You want fully open blooms for your event.

You can add flowers from your own landscape or cut flower garden to bouquets. In addition to the list above, you can grow these flowers at home:

• Celosia
• Cosmos
• Dahlia
• Daisy
• Peony
• Salvia
• Strawflower
• Zinnia

How to cut flowers in your garden:

The best time to gather flowers and foliage is in the cool of the day. Flowers will hold the most moisture and are more fragrant in the morning.

Bring the right tools with you into the garden. Start with a bucket filled partway with warm water. Florists use polypropylene or metal cone-shaped floral buckets about 10 inches high to store cut flowers. You can also use a bucket with a handle like a Homer bucket.

The best tool to use for cutting flowers is either a sharp knife or pruning snips. Pros use a landscape or sickle knife to make cuts. If you’re new to working with floral stems, wear gloves, or opt to use sharp pruning snips.

Keep your garden tools like knives separate from your kitchen and household knives and scissors. Household scissors crush delicate plant stems. Look for bypass pruning snips or shears for the cleanest cuts.

When selecting floral snips or pruning shears, look for built-in features like a thorn stripper (useful when working with roses) and a wire cutter (necessary when wiring delicate flowers).Never use floral snips when working with silk flowers.

In the garden, select blooms for cutting that are nearly fully open. (Exceptions to this rule are asters, marigolds, mums and zinnias. These flowers need to be fully open for your presentation-ready bouquet.)

Cut stems at a 45-degree angle and try to keep a long stem length. You’ll trim the stems again for the vase. The 45-degree angle ensures maximum surface area for water absorption. For efficiency, some gardeners strip leaves in the garden. Carry a second bucket for discarded foliage that you can put in your compost bin.

Whether you have flowers from your own garden or from a florist, you need to make a second cut before placing the flowers in a vase.

If you're making a lot of bouquets, you can take the extra step of conditioning your flowers. This is a technique professionals use to maximize the life of the blooms.

Steps to condition flowers:

• Remove foliage below water level.
• Put a clean, angled cut on the stem.
• Place floral stems in a bucket filled halfway with water. Store in a cool, dark place, for several hours or overnight.
• Some flowers, like tulips, are prone to drooping. You can wrap these stems in newspaper to support the stem and help them take in water.

To process lots of flowers, professional florists use specialty tools like table mounted professional stem cutters and hand-held thorn and leaf strippers. The leaf stripper saves your hands and makes easy work of floral arrangements with roses. Look for florist tools with a heavy duty spring and cushioned thumb rest.

Roses have hollow stems and benefit from being cut under water. The following have hollow stems with milky sap. Seal stem ends by dipping in boiling water for 20 seconds.

• Daffodils
• Hydrangeas
• Mums
• Poppies
• Stephanotis

Tip: Experts recommend against the practice of crushing plant stems. This does not help plants take up nutrients. You can split woody stemmed plants like hydrangeas, but do not crush them.

Preserve your favorite flowers by pressing the petals and creating crafts.

Here's how to press flowers in a book:

• Begin with fresh, unblemished blooms of your favorite annuals and perennials. Single blooms are easiest to press, because they lay flat. Larger blooms like roses can be separated into petals, then pressed into a pleasing arrangement. Remove the leaves from the stems, if desired.
• Choose heavy books with pages large enough to hold your flower arrangement (8-1/2" X 11" is a good size to start with).
• Open a book midway and line it with a piece of watercolor paper or card stock. Arrange flowers so they lay flat without overlapping. Top with waxed paper. Close the book, top with a second book and wait for up to 30 days.
• After a month, open the book to discover your dried floral masterpieces. Pressed flowers can be used to make Mother's Day and birthday cards, and other paper crafts.

You can air dry flowers by tying trimmed bundles upside down and letting them dry in a well-ventilated area out of direct sunlight. Air-dried flowers and herbs can be enjoyed in vases and crafty arrangements.

You can dry flowers in a microwave, too. Once you've picked flowers, place them in a microwavable bowl and cover with four cups of fresh cat litter. Microwave on high for two to three minutes. Remove from oven, let the kitty litter cool, and gently brush away the excess. Use the dried flowers in craft projects or display in a vase.

Here's a sweet idea to repurpose a cut flower arrangement: make flower crowns for little princes and princesses.

To make flower crowns, trim the flower stems to about 2 inches in length. Use green floral wire to make the base, measuring the child’s head first. Use wire to wrap a greenery base (florist leatherleaf is perfect here), then wire the blooms on. It’s a quick craft, not meant to last, and a fun way to use up floral bouquets.

A bouquet of fresh cut roses is a treat for yourself or a meaningful gift from a loved one. Learn how to keep roses alive with these tips.

When you receive a bouquet, you want to get them in fresh water as soon as possible. If a local florist delivered roses, they may have instructions for you, like topping off the water in the vase. If not, follow these instructions.

Prepare to make fresh cuts on the stems and place in water. Sometimes the stems have water tubes attached. Remove the water tubes, make fresh 45-degree angle cuts on the stems and remove any foliage that will fall below the water line. You can leave the thorns on the stems.

Place roses in a vase filled halfway with warm water and a floral preservative solution (either homemade or purchased).

When you’re finished arranging your roses, put more water in the vase and place in a space where you can enjoy their color and fragrance. Be careful of low tables where curious children and pets may get too close.

To keep roses alive longer, freshen with floral preservative every 2 to 3 days.

Tulips are another popular flower for cut bouquet arrangements. To keep tulips from drooping, replace the water in the vase with fresh, cool water every two days.

You can purchase orchid stems, too. Delicate orchids need fresh water daily and stems should be trimmed every other day.

Keep flowers fresher for longer when you use a flower food product. These products, whether purchased or homemade recipes, use sucrose, a biocide and citric acid to keep flowers fresh.

Sugar (sucrose) helps blooms open. You can't add straight table sugar to flowers, though, because sucrose contributes to microbial growth. A biocide like bleach is often added to minimize bacteria. Citric acid lowers the pH in the water and helps stems take up the nutrients.

Homemade Cut Flower Food Recipe

To one quart of warm water, add:

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon bleach

Stir and pour into flower vase. Make the mixture fresh every time you need it. Do not store it.

Not all flowers need the same amount of flower food. Gladioli are heavy feeders, zinnias are not. Asters and mums are okay without extra nutrition. Experiment and find out what works best for your flowers.

There’s an old wives’ tale about putting a penny in the flower water to reduce fungi. This is because pennies were once made mostly of copper. For more than 40 years, pennies have been made mostly of zinc, which doesn’t have the same anti-fungal properties as copper. Put your pennies in a piggy bank, not your flower vase.

You may have heard that adding booze to your blooms will help preserve them. The recommendation is for forcing daffodils and paperwhite narcissus and keeps the stems upright. Add gin, vodka, whiskey, rum or tequila in a ratio of 1 part liquor to 7 parts water. Alternatively, you can use isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) in a ratio of 1 part to 10 parts water.

Tip: When using floral preservatives, follow label instructions for best results. Manufacturers recommend replacing the treated flower water every two to three days.