A well-kept bouquet can easily last twice as long as one left to fend for itself. Nothing complicated: five steps, three of them on the day it arrives. Here's how we do it in the shop.
1. Start with a genuinely clean vase
This is the step people skip most often, and it's the one that matters most. What kills a bouquet is almost never a lack of water — it's the bacteria that colonize the water and block the stems, keeping the flower from drinking.
Wash the vase in hot soapy water and rinse it thoroughly, even if it looks clean. An invisible film often stays at the bottom of a vase that's been put away for months.
2. Recut the stems
As soon as a stem is cut, it begins to close up and form a plug. So recut them systematically when they arrive, even if the florist just did it.
- Take 2 to 3 cm off the base.
- Cut on an angle: it increases the absorbing surface and keeps the stem from sitting flat on the bottom.
- Use a sharp knife or pruning shears. Kitchen scissors crush the vessels instead of slicing them.
- If you can, cut under water — it prevents an air bubble from blocking the flow.
3. Strip every leaf that would sit in the water
No leaf should end up below the waterline. A submerged leaf breaks down in a few days and turns the water into a culture broth. It's the number one cause of bouquets that smell bad after three days.
Keep the upper foliage, which gives the bouquet its shape, and strip the bottom without hesitating.
4. Replace the water — don't just top it up
Change the water completely every two or three days. Adding water on top of water that's already loaded solves nothing.
At each change, take the chance to recut a centimetre of stem and rinse the vase. It's five minutes that make a visible difference.
As for the sachet of flower food that comes with the bouquet: use it, and follow the dosage on the packet. It combines a sugar that feeds the flower, an acidifier that helps the water move, and an agent that keeps bacteria down. The home recipes that circulate — a coin, an aspirin, a guessed splash of bleach — are useless at best, and harmful at worst if the dose is off.
5. Choose the spot carefully
A bouquet lives longer somewhere cool. Avoid:
- direct sun, which speeds up opening and drying;
- the top of anything that gives off heat — a television, an oven, a baseboard heater;
- drafts, including a ventilation vent;
- a bowl of fruit nearby. Ripening fruit gives off ethylene, a gas that ages flowers prematurely. It's the least known item on this list, and one of the most effective.
6. Pull the spent flowers as you go
In a mixed bouquet, not every variety lasts the same length of time. A fading flower also releases ethylene and drags its neighbours down with it. Take it out as soon as it droops: the rest of the bouquet will gain several days.
Don't hesitate to move the bouquet into a smaller vase along the way. A bouquet that shrinks gracefully beats a sparse one.
A few special cases
Tulips
They keep growing in the vase, sometimes by several centimetres, and lean toward the light. That isn't a defect. If you want them straight, recut them and turn the vase a quarter turn each day.
Roses
If a head droops while the flower is still fresh, it's usually an air bubble in the stem. Recut generously under water and put it back in the vase: the rose often straightens up within a few hours.
Lilies
Remove the stamens as soon as the flowers open. The pollen stains fabric permanently, and the flower lasts a little longer without them.
Gerberas
Their hollow stem bends easily. They prefer a little water — a few centimetres is enough — and a vase that holds the stems up.
The list, in short
- Vase washed with soap and rinsed.
- Stems recut on an angle, 2 to 3 cm, ideally under water.
- No leaf below the waterline.
- Water replaced completely every two or three days.
- Flower food used at the right dose.
- A cool spot, away from sun, heat and fruit.
- Spent flowers pulled without delay.