Mistakes to Avoid With Your Fresh Bouquet

It is typical for people to think that caring for just-cut flowers is kid's stuff. After all, they have already been cultivated, grown, and arranged in a lovely bouquet by well-trained professionals. The only thing you can do is to find an apt container, fill it with water, insert the blooms in, and Bob's your uncle.

But things tend to be a bit more complex than we want to believe. Whether you have received a gorgeous arrangement from a global flower delivery service or picked a lovely design from a local florist on the way home, here are some mistakes you want to avoid in order to behold the fabulous aesthetics of natural flowers longer.

So, without more ado, here are the most common flower display mistakes to sheer away from when accommodating your beautiful bouquet at home.

Neglecting To Change the Water

Mesmerizing natural delights, fresh flowers – alas and alack – are temporary. If your stems sit in one and the same water for days, they will pass away before much longer. In order for your bouquet to last as long as possible, it is better to refresh the water each alternate day.

Not Feeding Your Flowers

Flowers are living beings, and they demand nutrition as much as water. Many florists include a packet or two of flower food in the arrangement, so the blooms will not go hungry at a new place. Flower food is generally presented by a mixture of sugar, citric acid, and bleach. Sugar serves as good nourishment for the stems; the acid helps reduce the water’s pH level, while bleach inhibits the growth of bacteria.

A handful of flower food packets kindly provided by the florist may not be enough to nourish your bouquet throughout life (with proper TLC, an arrangement will stay alive for many weeks). You will need to add some food every time you change the water. If you have sugar, lime juice (lemon-containing soda like Sprite or 7Up can do the trick as well), and bleach at your fingertips, you can concoct nectar to satiate your cuties by yourself.

Using a Dirty Container

Of course, plants grow from the ground, and a little dirt can hardly hurt them. But rootless stems are not very strong and cannot effectively cope with the challenges of a vase-life. A rule of thumb is to pick an absolutely clean vessel, and even a better rule is to pour boiling water over the container before placing flowers in it. By doing so, you will ensure that the inner surface of the vase is sterile, leaving no chances for bacteria or mold.

If you use soap to clean the vessel, be sure you rinse it thoroughly, otherwise, your precious buds will be drinking soapy water and eventually wind up dead.

Exposing Your Bouquet to Cold

When choosing a room to place flowers in, make sure that the air is not too cold or hot. Temperature extremes can speed up withering. However, tropical floral species like orchids or birds of paradise will feel great and look their best in warm, highly humid areas.

Most species will be comfortable in room temperature water. However, varieties that start from a bulb, such as tulips, daffodils, and hyacinth, prefer cold water.

Mistreating the Stems

Access to plenty of fresh, nutritious water is the key to flowers’ longevity. So you want to pay attention to the stems from which, the heads receive everything necessary for living and blooming.

You should maximize surface area by clipping the stems at an angle rather than flat. If you purchase fresh flowers in a store, your florist, most likely, has already cut the stems at an angle for you. However, if you are collecting ornamentals from your own garden or preparing the purchased flowers for a vase, cut trim stems at an angle of approximately 45 degrees.

Trampling Over Foliage

Unfortunately, over time, your bouquet will drop its leaves and petals. This is an unavoidable part of the floral life cycle. But divinely beautiful, perfect by nature flowers must not remind us of their mortality, right? So be sure to remove dead foliage when you spot it. This will keep the water cleaner and free of bad microorganisms, and your blooms will be grateful for that.

Careless Placement

An elegant floral arrangement is supposed to delight you wherever it is placed. However, certain environments may not be very friendly to sensitive plants.

Avoid placing bouquets next to ripening fruit because it emits ethylene – a gas that negatively affects the flower’s ability to blossom and dramatically reduces plants’ vase-life. Smoking cigarettes next to a fresh bouquet is also a bad idea.

So there are enough ways to shorten the lifespan of fresh-cut flowers in a vase. But as you have learned how to steer clear of notorious mistakes, you will be able to admire a lovely creation for a long while.