Look after fresh flowers – Video and Text

Encouraged by the great feed back from our feature about the meaning of flowers we have transcribed the following video – how to look after fresh flowers and hope that it will help you to keep any flowers you buy or are given in tip top condition and help your flowers to last longer.


Flowers are one of the best decorating materials but they also happen to be one of the hardest to take care of especially if you have no common sense like me so today I’m here to learn how to take care of your fresh cut flowers and keep them looking as good for as long as possible.

When I bring home fresh flowers or have flowers online delivered they always seem to die – I’m sure I’m doing something wrong but I don’t know what it is. What do you need to do to care for fresh flowers? Watch this video and learn how to look after fresh flowers.

When you get them home you should have a vase ready with some luke warm water luke warm helps absorb into the stems faster – not too hot or too cold.

Make fresh flowers last longer

Food – flowers come with floral preservative – go ahead and mix that into the water

Does Sprite work? Yes Sprite will work if you don’t have floral preservative

I’ve also heard using copper coins, bleach – crazy things – do they work?

Bleach will work – just a tiny frop though.

Floral food is the best way to go but bleach is an option if not and sprite if all else not possible.

When water and preservative mixed take sharp knife and make a fresh cut of each stem – cut the flower stem at a slant.

Do you have to make the cut under running water?

Years ago you used to do it that way but its been proven that its unnecessary – cutting flowers underwater prevented air bubbles going into the stem so the absorption of water by the flower is uninterrupted but by having the vase of water ready you can make the cut and immediately put the flower into the water.

Location – where should I keep my fresh flowers?

After you cut and placed the flowers in a vase and arranged them is there anywhere you should put them? Like a drip I put flowers in the sun because plants need sun yes?.

Putting flowers in the sun is not recommended (rolls eyes) – it is the wrong place to put fresh cut flowers.

A little bit of light would be good but direct sunlight would heat up the flower arrangement and kill it faster – may be place flowers on a table away from a window

Not by a tv where its going to get a lot of heat or on top of a refrigerator or an air conditioning which will freeze it – average no extremes

So once in the right place what else should you do – just leave it?

Change water periodically – infact every day and add fresh preservative – that way the fresh water won’t have any bacteria which shortens the life of the flowers.  As well as fresh water every day it is good to cut the stems every day too.

Make the fresh cut just a little way up and quickly return the stem to the water

Don’t mix daffodils with other flowers – they have a sap that affects othe flowers badly.

Other things to keep flowers fresh and last longer

Foliage -leave on as many leaves as possible but strip off foliage that will be in the water where it will begin to decay

Follow these tips and you will have a beautiful bouquet of flowers that will last a long time and look great.