EXTEND THE LIFE OF YOUR FLOWERS BY USING FLORIST ICE
Everyone loves bright-bloomed flowers to improve the ambience of any space. Those special birthday lilies, Valentine’s Day roses or Mother’s Day orchids can never fail to enhance the mood.
But to keep flowers fresh and alive longer is a challenging task for many. First, you need to find a place that won’t harvest flowers before you order them. This way, flowers are guaranteed to remain fresh for weeks compared to flowers that are cut before your order. Instead of hoping for blooms to last for some days, you can make them last for two to three weeks with proper care and using quality florist gel. However, make sure they are freshly cut at the time of order.
Here are some easy and effective tips to keep your flowers fresh and smelling good for a longer duration:
1. Keeping Your Flowers Fresh
When you purchase flowers from a flower shop, the florist must have conditioned them well. Whenever you pick blooms from the garden or purchase a grower’s bunch, follow some easy steps for keeping them in good shape for weeks. First, you need to cut woody and green stems at a 45-degree angle. It prevents stems to sit flat in the bottom of a vase. It also creates a large surface area while ensuring more water absorption. You can even use shears or clippers for woody stems or knives for flowers. If you can, cut stem in water only. After that, remove leaves that otherwise may sit under the vase’s waterline. Leaves can rot underwater and also increase algae growth in your container.
Feed Flowers: When freshly cut, flowers need some nourishment and also an acidic ingredient like aspirin to let them absorb water. For the nourishment of harvested flowers, you can use the formula – for every quart of water, put two aspirins, a few drops of bleach and a teaspoon of sugar in it.
2. Extend the Life of Flowers
Here are some simple steps to extend the life of flowers:
Keep Changing Water: The thirsty flowers can die in no time. You need to check their water level frequency for ensuring the stem ends are properly covered. Also, keep changing the water after five days and re-cut stems as described before.
Avoid Flower Foes: The flowers can remain fresh in a cool room and if kept away from direct sunlight. You also need to avoid keeping them near appliances that release low or high temperatures like air conditioners, stoves, ceiling fans, TV or computers. Even open windows can dehydrate cut flowers quickly. You even need to keep freshly cut flowers away from fresh fruits that may release tiny amounts of gas, which can reduce the lifespan of cut flowers.
Refrigerator: While you may not expect to keep flowers away from certain cold spots, testers and experts unanimously agree that this technique will keep buds fresh for long. However, you need to do it every night.
3. Proper Use of Florist Ice
Given below are the three important steps to use florist ice to keep flowers fresh:
Step 1: For suspending flowers in florist ice, you have to work in layers. Firstly, fill an ice tray with florist ice cubes with about a quarter of water, now add flowers facing down and then freeze. After that, add more water for filling halfway and let it freeze. Also, fill it to the top and again freeze.
Step 2: For ice that is clear, you need to use distilled water that’s boiled and cooled later. It will limit the air bubbles and impurities that make ice cloudy.
Step 3: You may use edible flowers like pansies, orchids, nasturtiums and snapdragons, with this method to extend their life. It will ensure that they are not treated with chemicals and remain fresh with organic techniques.
Conclusion
Now, that you know how to extend the life of your fresh flowers, it will be easier for you to keep your blooms fresh and bright for weeks. Using the given techniques, you don’t have to use any chemical treatment for extending their life.
