Summer is the season of backyard BBQs and gatherings with family and friends. Fresh cut flowers make the perfect hostess gift–whether you pick them from your garden or purchase them from a grocery store or florist. But how do you keep your flowers from dying in the heat as you transport them? My mother taught me a simple trick that works wonders when your destination requires a bit of travel and you don’t want your flowers to wilt before they reach the arms of the hostess.
Just grab a few paper towels, and saturate them with water. Trim the stems slightly, and wrap the wet paper towels around them. If you are traveling especially far, add another few teaspoons of water to the bottom of the bag so the paper towels don’t dry out. Then, place a plastic baggie around the paper towels, and secure with a rubber band. Now you’re ready for the party!
Amanda
I used to work at a store that sold a small selection of cut flowers. Once you’ve transported them, when you put them in a vase of water, if you add just a tiny bit of bleach and sugar to the water, they will stay fresh a lot longer. I don’t know why, but it works. Just a few drops of bleach.
Anonymous
I worked for a florist for years. We used to joke that our flowers stayed fresh for 7 days with that little packet of “flower food” (preservative) we’d provide, and a week without it.
The best step is to re-cut the stems at an angle with a sharp clean knife under water, and then put the flowers right into clean water in your vase. Don’t cut with scissors or clippers if you can avoid it because that can crush the cells in the stem that take up water. We used a very sharp rose knife (floral knife). Cut off the old and possibly damaged bottom part of the stem so your flowers can take up water. This is like cutting a fresh cut on your Christmas tree trunk. You should do this with any loose bouquets you buy (as shown), and you can repeat this step every few days with an arrangement to help prolong things.
Storing your flowers in the fridge at night also helps them last longer. Changing any water that becomes cloudy is a great idea, too. You can do this instead of the bleach or vinegar trick (which isn’t proven to help much). Rinse stems and vase and refill with fresh water every so often. Re-cut the stems, especially if they appear discolored.
You can follow all these steps and still get some dud flowers that want to wilt immediately. A lot of factors are out of your control, such as how the flowers were shipped and handled before you got them. Some flowers are trickier to keep than others. There’s a knack to feeling a rose bud and telling if it will look perfect for many days, open quickly, or refuse to ever open and wither as a bud.
“Your mileage may vary.” That means these techniques might not work best for you, and something else might. But these are the things my employer taught me, and I’ve always thought they were logical and worked pretty well.
For transport, I put the water-filled jar or vase into a good sized box and then stuff newspaper firmly around it to hold it in place. The box will hold the flowers upright in the car. You can place them on the floor if you feel they won’t tip there, or put them on the seat with the lap belt and shoulder belt across the box to anchor it. If you don’t want to put all the water in the vase before you go, you can fill it the whole way when you arrive.
If it’s cold weather, protect the flowers with some sort of cover (plastic bag, paper bag hood, whatever). We had customers who’d get antsy about the time it would take to properly wrap up big poinsettias at Christmas (tap, tap, tap…), but you do not want to take a tropical plant outside in freezing weather without protection. Good way to lose your poinsettia. Likewise, don’t leave flowers sitting in a hot car.
Ellie
Thanks for sharing your expertise! 🙂
A
Any tips on how to presve flowers??
Tina
Cool tip. I know it’s irrelevant but I would like to make a point about the situation in my beautiful country Greece right now. On Monday, we had the deadliest fire ever in Attica, very close to the capital of Greece and 81 people, mostly families have lost their lifes. Everyone is mourning and trying to help, by sending medicaton and food to people who lost their loved ones and their homes.
Ellie
I’m so sorry to hear that, Tina! We will be praying. Do you live near the site of the fire?
Tina
No, I don’t, but you never know where tragedy might strike.