Valentine's Day Plus One: The Secrets of Making Cut Flowers Last - And They Work for Potted Flowers Too

Someone gave you roses - now what?

Valentine's Day Plus One. Cut and potted flowers can last much longer, even when a heated house or business office is drier than a Calvinist sermon.

Most cut flowers will arrive with a little packet of stuff to add to water. People also say, "Dissolve an aspirin in water." Either one may help a little, but the following will help the most in makinjg cut flowers last.

In college, the future Mrs. Ichabod and I began learning how long a rose could be kept fresh, because I often bought flowers for her. She would keep a rose in a water glass or vase, dip the bloom in water, and sprinkle the bloom during the day.

Falling in Love roses, pink. Veterans Honor, red.

Cut flowers - especially roses - are sponge-like in their ability to absorb water. That water is not going to move up the stems very well after someone cut them.  There are six remedies for this.

1. To facilitate water uptake, snip the ends of the flowers as soon as delivered and put them in a vase of water - or water plus that packet of something.
2. Before putting the flowers in the vase, put them in the kitchen sink and soak them with clean water or spray them with that little sink hose gadget. That will hydrate the stems and flowers. Snipping a little from the bottom of the stems will also help.
3. Change the water every single day. The flowers do not like to sit in bleh water becoming packed with bacteria. Compost them later. 
4. When changing the vase water, spray the entire flower bunch again. Roses love this treatment and really perk up.
5. If possible, snip some of the stems off each day, which helps the flowers' uptake of water.
6. Sprinkle the flowers in the vase later in the day, if so moved. Extra water drops in the blooms will help them last longer. They can even get their shower and water change again, later in the day.

Potted flowers are a little different. They are in a sterile potting soil medium and the pots are often wrapped in a foil. Potted flowers enjoy more hydration than they usually get.

• Poke holes in the foil on the bottom. Fill the pot with water, and spray the entire plant with the sink hose.
• Let the excess water drain from the pot while in the sink.
• Place the pot on a flat dish to catch extra water draining later.
• Repeat this every day.

Flowers harvested from the garden will always be more hydrated than anything from a store or flower shop, reason enough to grow some.