Christmas Flower Care

If you’re lucky enough to receive flowers this Christmas, or you’ve picked up a festive table centre for yourself, you’ll want to ensure they last as long as possible, which is where the correct care and conditioning comes in.

 

There are plenty of old wives tales out there about adding sugar, bleach and even Coca-Cola to the water to prolong life. However, whilst all of those can help to some degree, there are better ways to ensure your Christmas flowers last the course of the season,.

 

Firstly, here at Roses Are Red, we believe a long life starts at the beginning of the chain, which is why we only buy top quality flowers and use professional flower food solutions in store, which means healthy flowers will be sent to you in the first place. In addition to this, we ensure we use "tight blooms" which means the Recipient gets the maximum vase life out of their gift - rather than us!

 

Once in your home, a few things you can do to help ensure longevity is:

 

• Allow your flowers to acclimatise in your house before unwrapping – this will allow them to ‘warm-up’ gradually.
• Remove packaging. Whilst it might be tempting to leave the beautiful florist’s wrapping on, for the longest life, remove all packaging.
• Re-cut the stems – just a few centimetres will do. Cut at an angle, allowing for maximum water intake.
• Strip away all leaves below the water line.
• Place in clean, fresh water. Plus, if your flowers were sent with a sachet of flower food, use it!
• Replace the water regularly to ensure bacteria can’t build up.
• Avoid placing flowers near a radiator – central heating in an already hot Christmas house will significantly reduce vase life.
• Keep flowers away from fruit – certain fruits (bananas in particular) give off ethylene, which flowers don’t like at all!

 

By following these simple points, your flowers will give lasting pleasure throughout the Christmas period.

 

Have a great Christmas!