| Flower Power: How to Make your Bouquet Last :
“Take out the fresh flower bouquet and try to keep it in the same design prepared by the florist, then just snip it about an inch to an inch and a half on the bottom of the stems just so they can start to drink water. Then rinse out the initial vase that it comes in using antibacterial, soap or regular dishwashing detergent is fine,” said Tania. “Using the small packet of flower food you place the arrangement back in the vase with some fresh water. We found out that warm water works well with roses, so if you’ve always placed them in cold water…try something different this time and see whether it helps.” Keep in mind that whatever is going into the water should be free of any greens. You want to keep the water as clean as possible. By doing this Tania says you can extend the life of your flowers about 2 to 3 days because of the humidity. “Of course in the states they’ll probably last a little longer, but at the same time…you want to keep them out of direct sunlight, you want to keep them in a cool, dry place that’s 60 to 70 degrees, so basically in the aircon…some sunlight is good as opposed to fluorescent light.” Here’s where we found out a special secret to keeping that bouquet in bloom: After refilling your vase, add flower food. Or you can always use any generic antiseptic mouth wash. And believe it or not, you can actually crush up some aspirin for preserving your flowers too! What about if you receive flowers that don’t come in a vase? Depending on the size of the arrangement, use a smaller mouth vase if you just receive a couple stems of roses. If you receive a wrapped bunch, you want to use a wider mouth vase. “So you always want to take the greens that encase it, use the focal point flowers to be the accent, take the greens and go around it, just try and keep your hand in a circle and go around it…again, add your mouthwash aspirin or floral life. Snip your ends about inch and a half to two inches and if you have a smaller vase, then go ahead and go shorter on your stems because you want the arrangement to open up and make sure your greens always surround the flowers. Then just play with whatever looks good to the eye!” One way you can extend the life of your flowers even further as memories of that special occasion is to dry them. Tania explains the easiest way to do it: “Remove your flowers from the water. Typically roses, geberras things that have a larger petal like roses are easy to preserve or babies breath…but what you can do is remove your greens from the arrangement, sometimes a lot of your filler flowers aren’t gonna last as long as your focal point flowers.” After you remove whatever’s dying and the foliage – Be sure that you hang your flowers in an area where there isn’t much movement. Tania finds that people often dry them on the front door of their home, but you should actually steer away from this as the constant movement isn’t good. Instead, just suspend them upside down from a hanger or even a hook on a wall will do.
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