A bouquet that fades in four days and one still beautiful on the tenth are often the same bouquet. What separates them is the first ten minutes after it arrives, and a little attention each morning after that.
This is what our florists have learned about keeping cut flowers alive, written for the conditions we work in: dry heated apartments in January, delivery vans at minus twenty, and August humidity.
The first ten minutes
Most bouquets are lost before they ever reach a vase.
Step 1Into water, without delay. If your flowers arrived with aquatubes on the stems, the small water capsules we use on roses, they will hold for a few hours. Keep the bouquet upright so the tubes stay effective. Without them, every minute out of water counts, because a stem begins sealing itself within minutes of being cut.
Step 2Recut every stem. The most important gesture, and the one most often skipped. Take two or three centimetres off each stem at a sharp angle, with a knife or well-sharpened shears. Scissors crush the vessels that carry water, and a crushed stem no longer drinks. The angled cut widens the surface and keeps the stem from resting flat on the bottom of the vase.
Step 3Strip the lower leaves. Any foliage below the waterline will rot within a day and turn the water cloudy. Those bacteria are what block the stems. Remove every leaf that would sit underwater, and leave the rest.
The vase, and the water
Proportion. As a rule the vase should stand about one third the height of the arrangement. Too tall and the flowers disappear into it. Too short and the whole thing tips. Stems need room as well, because a crowded vase means flowers competing for water and air that cannot circulate.
A truly clean vase. Warm water, a little dish soap, rinsed thoroughly. A vase that looks clean can still carry bacteria from the last bouquet, and those bacteria will shorten the life of this one. This single step does more than any additive.
Lukewarm water, with one exception. Lukewarm water is drawn up faster than cold, which is what a thirsty stem needs. Tulips are the exception: they prefer cold water and hold much better in it.
Fill it generously. Most stems drink more in the first twenty-four hours than at any point afterwards. A vase filled to a third is a vase that will be empty by morning.
A minute each morning
- Change the water daily. Every day if you can, every second day at minimum. Cloudy water means the bacteria have already taken hold.
- Recut a centimetre each time. Stem ends seal and clog. A fresh cut reopens them.
- Rinse the vase rather than simply topping up the water.
- Remove spent blooms. A dying flower releases ethylene, a gas that ages everything around it. Taking it out protects the rest.
- Watch the water level. Hydrangeas in particular drink an astonishing amount and can empty a vase overnight.
Where to place it, in a Montreal apartment
Location matters more here than in milder climates, because our indoor conditions are extreme in both directions.
In winter, the enemies are radiators, forced-air vents and dry air. Indoor humidity in January routinely falls to twenty or twenty-five percent, a desert level. Flowers then lose water through their petals faster than the stems can replace it. Keep bouquets well away from any heat source, and if the air is very dry, a light mist on the petals in the morning helps, particularly for hydrangeas, which drink through their heads as well as their stems.
The one thing that ruins a bouquet
Never leave flowers in a cold car. Below about six degrees the petals begin to suffer. At minus twenty they are destroyed in minutes, and the damage often shows only hours later, when the tissue blackens. If you collect your flowers from the shop in winter, take them straight home.
In summer, keep them out of direct sun and away from air conditioning vents. A cool room with indirect light is ideal.
Away from the fruit bowl. Ripening apples, bananas, tomatoes and avocados release ethylene, the same gas that ages flowers. A bouquet beside a fruit bowl fades visibly faster than the same bouquet across the room.
Flower by flower
Roses
Recut at a sharp angle and give them lukewarm water, which they draw up far faster than cold. Remove the guard petals if they look bruised: those are the outer petals we leave in place to protect the bloom in transit, and taking them off reveals a cleaner flower.
If a rose bows its head on a bent neck, the cause is an air bubble in the stem rather than the end of the flower. Recut under running water, wrap the whole rose firmly in paper to hold the head upright, and stand it in deep warm water for an hour. Most recover completely.
Spray roses, branched and carrying several blooms on one stem, behave the same way but open in sequence, which extends the life of the whole arrangement.
Tulips
Cold water, no more than a third of the vase, and no direct light. Tulips keep growing after cutting, two or three centimetres in the vase, and they lean toward the light. That is a characteristic rather than a fault. If they flop, wrap them snugly in newspaper and stand them in deep cold water for an hour to straighten.
Hydrangeas
The thirstiest flower we work with, and the one people give up on soonest. They absorb water through the head as well as the stem, which is why a wilted hydrangea can usually be brought back. Submerge the entire head in a basin of cool water for thirty to forty-five minutes, then recut the stem and return it to the vase.
Calla lilies
They are not true lilies, and they behave quite differently. Their stems are fleshy and turn soft faster than woody ones, so keep the water shallow, five to eight centimetres, and change it daily. Handle them gently: the stem bruises, and a bruise becomes a soft spot within a day.
Peonies
They arrive as tight spheres, and that is deliberate. If they are slow to open, a warmer room encourages them, and passing the closed bud briefly under lukewarm water dissolves the sugar that holds the petals together.
Lisianthus, alstromerias and chrysanthemums
The long-distance runners of a mixed bouquet. They ask for nothing beyond clean water, and they will generally still be beautiful once the roses have finished. Pinch spent blooms off one at a time rather than pulling the whole stem, because the buds behind them are still to come.
The foliage
Salal, Italian ruscus, eucalyptus and pistacia generally outlast the flowers they accompany. When the blooms are finished, do not empty the vase: strip it back to the greenery and it will usually carry on for several more days on its own.
Orchid plants
The opposite of everything above. Orchids are killed by kindness. Water sparingly, roughly once a week, letting the medium dry between waterings, and never leave the pot standing in water. Bright indirect light. A well-kept phalaenopsis stays in bloom for many weeks.
Bringing back a bouquet that is fading
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Whole bouquet limp, water still clear | Blocked stem ends | Recut every stem at an angle, fresh lukewarm water in a clean vase |
| Limp, water cloudy | Bacteria from submerged leaves | Strip the leaves, scrub the vase, recut, fresh water |
| Marked drooping, dehydration | Too long out of water | Submerge the full stems in lukewarm water for one to two hours |
| Hydrangea collapsed | The head has lost its moisture | Submerge the whole head for thirty to forty-five minutes |
| Rose bowed at the neck | Air bubble in the stem | Recut under water, wrap in paper, deep warm water for an hour |
| Tulips flopping | Normal, and warmth | Wrap in newspaper, deep cold water, a cool room for an hour |
What to expect in the vase
Some flowers are simply more fleeting than others, and that is not a fault in the bouquet. As an indication, with the care described above and in a normal room:
| Chrysanthemums, alstromerias, lisianthus | around ten days |
| Salal, ruscus, eucalyptus and other foliage | around ten days |
| Calla lilies | seven to ten days |
| Roses | five to eight days |
| Hydrangeas | five to eight days |
| Tulips, peonies | four to six days |
These are indications rather than guarantees. Vase life varies a great deal with the season, the variety, the temperature of the room and the care given. Some bouquets go well beyond these figures.
Questions we are often asked
Some flowers arrived open and others closed. Is that normal?
It is intended. We compose our bouquets with blooms at different stages, so the arrangement changes over the days rather than peaking all at once. The roses still tight on the first evening will be the ones carrying the bouquet at the end of the week. A bouquet delivered entirely open is a bouquet with nowhere left to go.
Should I keep my flowers in the fridge overnight?
No. This is persistent advice and it does more harm than good. A florist's cooler is kept far warmer than a domestic refrigerator, around five or six degrees, and it holds nothing else. A home fridge is colder than most cut flowers tolerate, and it is full of fruit and vegetables releasing ethylene, the gas that ages blooms fastest. Moving the vase to the coolest room in the apartment for the night is the right version of the idea.
Does aspirin, a coin or sugar in the water work?
Far less than a clean vase and a fresh cut, which is where almost all of the effect lies. Sugar feeds the bloom but also feeds bacteria, so on its own it does more harm than good. Changing the water is worth more than anything you can add to it.
Why did this bouquet fade sooner than the last one?
Usually the mix of flowers rather than the care. A bouquet built around tulips and peonies is naturally more fleeting than one built around chrysanthemums and alstromerias. The season, the temperature of the room and the journey the flowers made before reaching us all play their part. If a bouquet fades much sooner than it should, tell us. We want to know.
Can I dry them afterwards?
Roses dry well: hang them upside down in a dark, dry, airy place. So does craspedia, the small yellow spheres we use in mixed bouquets, which keeps its colour remarkably. Most other cut flowers do not dry gracefully, so it is worth choosing what you keep.
A question about your flowers?
Thirty years on Boulevard Saint-Laurent mean we have seen every way a bouquet can go wrong. Send us a photograph through our contact page and we will tell you honestly whether it can be saved.
Discover our bouquets of the moment, our roses and our orchids, each arranged by hand in our workshop on the day it is delivered, in Montreal, Laval and on the South Shore.
