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How to keep cut flowers fresh and alive for longer?

Everyone loves buying flowers. But when they wilt or die only after a few days in the vase, it breaks our hearts a little.

While there are no ways to prevent that from happening, we can certainly take some steps to elongate their life in the vase.

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  • Keep them hydrated

Don’t leave your fresh flowers over the counter when you reach home, and go searching for a vase. If you don’t have a vase ready, just dunk the flowers in the bathtub or a vessel for the time being. Avoid leaving them dry as much as you can.

  • Change the water periodically

Once you get your vase ready, pour chilled water and place the flowers in the vase. However, don’t leave your flowers unattended for days. Rather, change the water every alternate day. Whenever you replace the water, don’t leave the flowers dry even for a minute. Again, dunk them in a vessel temporarily and use cold water whenever you’re replacing the vase water.

  • Prune the stems

Before placing the flowers in a vase, prune the stems with sharp scissors. Cut the stems in a 45° angle. This makes a wide opening at the end of the stem, and allows the flowers to absorb the most amount of water.

It is very common for cut flowers to get infected with bacteria. This affects the end of the stem first and then spread slowly throughout the flowers. So, whenever you’re taking the flowers out of the vase to replace the water, trim the stems each time. This will keep your flowers fresher and safe from infections.

  • Keep away from heat and direct sunlight

Choose the place wisely where you are displaying the flower vase. To elongate your cut flowers’ shelf life, maintain a few precautions. Keep them away from direct sunlight, i.e. places like just beside the window or door. Also keep them away from any heat sources, for example, besides the oven in the kitchen, or the fireplace in case of the living room. Moreover, ripening fruits produce ethylene that damages flowers. So, don’t place fruit bowls next to your flower vases.

  • Add flower food

To further enhance the vase life of fresh flowers, add flower food to the vase every time you replace the water. You can easily buy flower food packets from flower shops. There are also some home ingredients that provide similar results as flower foods. These ingredients are: sugar, soda, apple cider vinegar, and aspirin.

  • Refrigerate at night

Another great way to keep your flowers fresh for longer is to refrigerate at night. Don’t freeze though! Just take your flower vase and place them inside the refrigerator at night, and keep them there for at least 8 hours. Take them out in the morning and put into display like you normally do.

If you can maintain all of these actions, you’ll be amazed to see the results! Flowers are pretty expensive and highly perishable items. If you can take some simple measures, you’ll enjoy your flowers for longer that you expect, and feel it to be a value for money experience. To get flower delivery in Knoxville TN, try Petal Pushers now!

Also Read: Romantic flowers that will take your breath away