11 Ways to Keep Your Cut Flowers Fresh (Expert Recommendations)

How to keep flowers fresh in the house is a question that is not difficult but not easy to do. Since fresh flowers have unique properties, you need to understand them and pocket a few tips to keep them fresher, longer.

Here are tips from garden experts to help you take care of your flower pot more and more beautifully. Some of them are:

  1. Keep your flowers cool
  2. Remove leaves
  3. Use food packet

Read our article to find out more!

Katie Mills from Poshh Magazine

Prepare your flowers

Strip away any foliage which is going to end up below the water line. Then check the internet to see if there any reliable tips for the type of flowers you have.

For example, daffodils and tulips both tend to ooze slime when you first put them in water. Usually, this wears off after a few hours, and you can put them in with other flowers.

11 Ways to Keep Your Cut Flowers Fresh (Expert Recommendations)

If you absolutely must put them in with other flowers straight away, change the water after a few hours.

Keep the water fresh and clean

You don’t want to drink stagnant, dirty water, neither do your cut flowers. If you use a clear vase, it’s often obvious when the water needs attention. If you don’t, then you need to make a point of checking and changing it regularly.

Use the food packet

It’s there for a reason. If you don’t get one, then a 50/50 mix of sugar and apple cider vinegar is a good bet. The science behind this is that the sugar feeds the plants, but it also attracts bacteria.

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Apple cider vinegar deters bacteria, but flowers are fine with it. You could also use fizzy drinks/alcohol with apple cider vinegar but don’t use them independently.

Keep your flowers cool

If you have space, you might want to go as far as keeping your flowers in the fridge overnight (seriously). More realistically, put your flowers in the coolest place you can find overnight (ideally, it’ll be dark too).

Try to keep them at least moderately cool in the daytime. If you can’t keep them cool, make sure you give them plenty of water and regularly change it.

Melanie Musson from HomeInsuranceRates.com

Trim the stems

The most important thing you can do to keep cut flowers fresh is to trim the stems as soon as you get them. Use sharp pruning shears to cut each stem at a 45-degree angle and immediately put it in water.

Remove leaves

Remove all leaves that are below the waterline. Leaves underwater will rot and turn your water into a swamp.

11 Ways to Keep Your Cut Flowers Fresh (Expert Recommendations)

Keep the water fresh. Every day, refill the water, and every 2 days, replace the water.

Keep the flowers out of direct sunlight and away from heat

Flower shops keep their cut flowers in the refrigerator because they last longest there, so the closer you can keep your flowers to a refrigerator climate, the fresher they’ll stay.

Remove the pollen

If you have cut lilies, remove the pollen. As soon as the flower opens, pull the pollen from each stamen using your thumb and forefinger.

Owen Mosser from The Golden

You can keep them fresh longer with the right ingredients that you can find in your home. Here are 3 ways to keep cut flowers fresh longer:

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Hair Spray

Hair spray can preserve your flowers just as it preserves your hair. A little sprinkle of hair spray can make your cut flowers fresh longer.

Give the undersides of the leaves and petals a little spray, and you’re good to go. See your flowers thrive and be fresh for a longer period.

Bleach

Your freshly cut flowers can be fresh longer if you mix a little bleach into your vase water. Add in a quarter teaspoon of bleach for every liter of water.

11 Ways to Keep Your Cut Flowers Fresh (Expert Recommendations)

This doesn’t only preserve your flowers longer, it also helps keep bacteria away from your water.

Make your preservative!

Or you can simply make your flower preservative. All you need is sugar, white vinegar, and warm water.

You just have to dissolve 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of vinegar into a liter of warm water. Make sure that this mixture covers ¾ of your cut flower stems. Observe how long your flowers stay fresh because they’re hard to believe.

Conclusion

Hopefully, with our article on simple tips on keeping flowers fresh for a long time, you will know how to keep flowers fresh so that your home is always new, vibrant, and fragrant! Good luck.

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Jill Sandy

I am a sustainable focus gardener. I love decorating my home backyard with beautiful landscape design and creative garden care techniques I develop myself.