They gave you or you bought a bouquet of flowers For Valentine’s Day, but are you afraid of seeing him wilted with the curved stems and flowers with his head dangling after a few days? Don’t panic! How understandable is when a flower is cut has the minutes counted And slowly it begins to dry, having no longer available the nourishment and energy that comes from the plant. But citing Mary Poppins “just a little sugar and the bouquet lasts more”. For a long -lasting bouquet, but in addition to sugar which provides energy to flowers, acidifying agents are also needed and antimicrobialoften inserted in special formulations provided by the florist, the sachets of “Flower food“. In general, just follow the instructions on the sachets to get the best from your bouquet. Changing the water often, cutting the stems and reducing thermal stress are other precautions that we can use. Let’s see why!
6 tips for keeping cut flowers longer
Each cut flower has a different duration
The duration of a bouquet of flowers depends on various factorswhich also include the treatments made before the collection and during storage, such as the addition of Gaba, calcium or salicylic acid. However, the employees of the sector are occupied of this. What can we do?
First of all, a tip for those who give a bouquet of flowers: Each flower has a different duration Once it is cut and used to compose the bouquet you want to give. Surely a good florist will be able to advise you which flowers to use, but by way of cognitive or if you want to compose your bouquet alone, know that it is possible to divide them into three bands:
- short duration (less than 5 days): Dalie, Narcisi and Delphinium;
- average (between 6 and 14 days): gladioli, roseorchids, protein, primruli, calendula and antirrinies;
- long duration (from 2 to 4 weeks): tulipans, chrysanthemums (although perhaps they are not very suitable for Valentine’s Day), Garofani and Anthurium.
Cut the stems for a more hydrated bouquet
If you are instead in the group of those who receive the bouquet (or if you have prepared it only for your eyes), the first thing to do before putting it in the pot is Cut the stems. This allows you to vary the heights of the various flowers and not create size with too many stems and nearby buds. Moreover, it is essential to allow a correct water drainage inside the stem.
When the flower is cut, the process of breathing water continues, making it dry quickly. Cut the stem under the water and before immersing it in the pot allows you to eliminate the already dry part, Eliminate any air bubbles and expose new management fabric, called xylem.
This, a bit like our blood vessels, allows you to transport water and nutrients to the plant and in our case to the rest of the cut flower. In addition, it is preferable to make a angled cut To increase the contact surface and therefore absorption, between the xylem and water. Be careful not to crush them because you would damage the xylem and then prevent the passage of the water.
The importance of the hydration of flowers lies in the fact that the water allows to restore and maintain the turgor pressure Which keeps on the plant cells: water and intracellular liquids “push”, or rather, exert pressure against the plant cellular walls, making the entire tissue “rollel” and therefore also the flowers. It will also have happened to you to see, especially in the summer, a seedling with the leaves a little loose and lowered, get up and resume color after being watered.
We remove excess leaves and petals in senescence
If we see that at the base of the stems there are too many leaves or we notice signs of senescence, It would be good to eliminate themand this also applies to the external petals that perhaps could already be a little fond of.
Eliminating excess or senescent leaves allows you to Reduce microbial contamination Water: remember that decomposition fabrics call bacteria. And eliminate the already dried petals allows the flower of save energy And nutrients by directing them where there is a need.
What to put in the water to make the cut flowers last
Like everyone, flowers also need nourishment and in particular of carbohydrates, or even better than sugars. Sugars allow flowers of maintain different metabolic processes active Even after being cut from the plant: for example, they favor the opening of the buds, inhibit senescence processes and reduce water loss favoring the closure of the stomis (structures similar to small pores dedicated to the exchange of gas and water vapor with the environment). In addition, they are osmotically active, it means that they can increase water absorption.
That’s why some grandmother advised to dissolve some sugar in the flower pot, although those most used in the “Food for Flower” sachets are sucrose and fructose.
Clean water and antimicrobial agents
The water we use is essential for the duration of the bouquet: firstly, if too hard or limestone, it is better to use water demineralized. It also goes changed when it becomes cloudy. In fact, the watering of water is a sign of proliferation of mushrooms and bacteria which can attack the xylem and block the absorption of the water.
To reduce this proliferation, in “Flower Food” sachets they are inserted in the appropriate specific doses antimicrobial compounds, typically silver based and chlorine (you will have heard to add water to the water … here, do not do it, because the right proportions are needed). They are also used acidifying To lower the pH, such as citric acid, both to prevent microbial growth and to encourage the maintenance of turgor pressure.
Little stress and leave it alone!
Last trick we can use is that of do not stress Too much the bouquet of flowers! They usually want a fresh placewhere they are not affected directly by the sun: high temperatures and direct sun favor the breathability of the water.
In addition, it would be good not to place the vase too close to other plants or ripe fruits. In fact they produce a volatile molecule, theethylenewhich naturally activates the aging processes of plants. A room full of ethylene for the flower deck is like a gas chamber.
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