4 Ways to Make Cut Flowers Last

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Flowers at home lift the room and bring freshness from the outdoors in. They’re a real treat and I’m a firm believer that treats should be dragged out for as long as possible.

Here I’ve put together 4 simple ways to prolong your cut flowers for you to get the most from them and to make them last for as long as possible. Take a look down this page to see the 4 ways you can enjoy your cut flowers for longer.

1. Clean Vases

The 1st tip would be to make sure you clean the vases, bowls or jugs you use for flowers really thoroughly after you’ve finished with them and before you put flowers in them. Use a splash of your washing up liquid, wear gloves and give everything a really good scrub. Rinse off with cold water because cold water gives everything a sparkly shine. Not sure why, but I find cold water does the trick! I’ve recently discovered that Method bathroom cleaner is also an amazing vase cleaning product and is sometimes on offer at Waitrose and Robert Dyas which is always great news and it smells nice! So give your vases a good scrub to make sure there’s less dirt and bacteria as bacteria affects the life span of flowers.

2. Clear Stems and No Leaves Under the Water

The 2nd tip would be to make sure the stems are really clean and clear of leaves, twigs, and places were dirt can get trapped. I have thorn strippers which get rid of the thorns and leaves from roses. You can also wear gloves to pull off the leaves and use scissors to snip away any thorns or fly away pieces of stem. Make sure all the leaves are off below the tie point of your bouquet to make sure there are no leaves under the water because they make the water go mushy and brown and the flowers don’t like that.

It’s also a good idea to keep your scissors clean too.

3. Change the Water

Then the 3rd tip is to change the water in your vase every other day. I know that sounds like a bit of a pain but it will make your flowers last longer and the clean water is much more attractive than murky swamp water. In between each water change make sure you give the vase a wipe round because you’ll notice a layer of brown scum on the vase and you don’t want that to sit in the water with the flowers, so just wipe that off with your method cleaner or fairy liquid. Rinse clean and then add fresh cold water. Before you put the stems back in, give them a little snip, a couple of cm is fine. This makes sure that the water has a really easy passage to travel up the stem into the leaves and flowers.

You can also give the flowers a reshuffle each time you change the water, take out any stragglers that have seen better days.

4. Keep Flowers Away from Direct Light and Heat

The 4th tip is to keep your flowers way from heat or direct sunlight. It’s quite hard to do this on a hot sunny day in summer and also in winter when you need the radiator on because it’s freezing outside. But I would say, keep your flowers away as far as possible from heat or sunlight because the warmth in the water will multiply the bacteria faster and make the water discolour quickly.

Some Bonus Flower Tips

DAFFODILS Bonus tip

Daffodils leak out a substance into the water that kills other flowers including tulips. In spring time, when you get beautiful daffodils and tulips available in the shops, try to keep them separate because one murders the other. If you do want to combine them or you get a bouquet that seems to have them mixed up in it together you’re going to have to get the daffodils to seep out as much of their sap as you can. I would advise that you get your daffodil bunch, cut the stems, put them in water and just keep changing the water over the next couple of hours, whenever you get the chance. You want the white cloudy sap to disperse out from the stems as much as possible. Keep changing the water until less is coming out of the daffodils so when they’re put with the tulips they’re less likely to kill them because the sap has been drained away.

Clean and leaf free stems go below the water line.

an extra bonus tip for hydrangeas and roses.

If your hydrangeas or rose stems have drooped or shrivelled, there is potential to bring them back to life. To do this, you need to boil the kettle, then once the water is boiled, pour it into a cup or mug that won’t shatter with boiling water in it (not your favourite vase). Just an inch or so of hot water, not too deep. Then re-cut your flower stem at an angle, put the flower stems into the hot water and leave there for a minute. I learnt this method at Flower College and they called it shock treatment. Through my own experience I’ve realised it works best if you use cold water separately after the hot water. So next you need to fill a vase with cold water. After the minute is up, take the stems out of the hot water and cut above the line where the stem was in the water, because you’ll notice the stem’s been slightly cooked in the very hot water. Above that line you re-cut the stem and put the stem straight into the cold water. It’s likely that the cut flower will now be able to drink water again because there may have been an air bubble that the hot water has resolved. Give it a couple of hours and fingers crossed, the rose or hydrangea will have revived itself (disclaimer: always be careful around boiling hot water x).

I can’t wait to hear if you have any tips or questions about keeping your flowers alive for longer, head to my contact page to let me know. You can also follow me on Instagram for more DIY flower tips.

Photos by Sophie Carefull Photography

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