How to Look After Your Flowers | 6 Tips

Six tips about how to look after your flowers and make them last longer is the focus of my latest video on YouTube.

Tip 1. Remove Lower Leaves

If your flowers have any foliage which may fall below the waterline, you need to remove them. Some flowers have clean stems like bluebells and some have lower leaves on their stems like tulips. If you leave the leaves on, the foliage will rot and cause bacteria to grow, which will shorten the life of the flowers.

Tip 2. Trim Stems

Cut approximately 2.5cm/1” off the end of each stem at a slant. Once a flower is cut from its mother plant, its stem immediately begins to heal itself, similar to a wound on your skin. What we want to do is re-open up the cells in the stem, which we do by recutting them. This ensures that the flower’s able to easily take up water again.

Cutting at a slant ensures a maximum surface area for the stem to take up water.  Plus, the angled cut prevents the end of the stem from standing flat on the bottom of the container and therefore blocking the water supply.

If you have any woody stems, like the stems of lilac, hydrangeas or guelder rose, it’s a good idea to split up the stem to help the flowers more easily take up water.

Tip 3. Use a Clean Vase

Place your flowers in a clean vase with fresh water. If your container is dirty, any bacteria will harm the flowers.

Tip 4. Use Flower Food

Use flower food if it comes with your flowers. It’s available either as a sachet of powder or liquid. Make sure that you add the correct ratio of water to flower food. Simply follow the instructions on the sachet, add it to the water in the vase and stir.

Flower food will help to prolong the life of your flowers. Chrysal, a flower food maker, actually states that using their flower food increases your flowers’ vase life up to 60% compared to water alone.

If you’re wondering what’s in flower food. It contains nutrients, pH regulators and water absorption promoters all of which help to slow down the rapid aging caused by cutting the flower off the mother plant.

Tip 5. Consider where you place your flowers

It’s best to keep your flowers in a cool room out of heat like direct sunlight and radiators, as any heat will make them age more quickly. Keep them away from fruit and vegetables, as they produce ethylene, a gas which shortens the vase life of the flowers.

Also keep flowers away from draughts like open windows, fans, or air-conditioning units. They cause the flower’s moisture to evaporate to more quickly than it can absorb and it will go limp. 

Tip 6. Refresh Your Blooms

Every 2-3 days, empty and clean your vase, add fresh water and re-cut the stems. If you have any flower food, add it to the water too. This is to ensure your water will constantly be disinfected and filled with fresh nutrition for your flowers to stay blooming.

By following these six tips, you’ll be able to enjoy your flowers for longer. If you’d like to see the video version of this blog post, simply head over to my YouTube Channel.