How to Care for your hand-tied bouquet after delivery & get the best out of them!

So – you’ve just been lucky enough to receive a beautiful bouquet of flowers… Now what??

A spotlessly clean vase is key to helping your flowers stay beautiful fresh so that you can enjoy them for the longest amount of time possible. Vases and containers should be washed clean in warm, soapy water, rinsed and then simply add a spot of bleach and using a washing up brush, brush the bleach around the sides of the vase before rinsing and leaving to dry on the draining board.

Fill a jug with clean, cold water and dissolve the flower food provided according to the instructions on the packet. Too much flower food in the water and your flowers will bloom too quickly and go over too soon, too little and the flowers won’t find enough food in the water in order to prolong their blooms!

Once diluted, add this water to your vase. Cut the tie holding the water bubble in place and remove the cellophane. Do not cut the tie holding the flowers and foliage together! This is what makes your bouquet a hand-tied arrangement – it is ready to enjoy and doesn’t need rearranging.

Be sure to recut all stems in your bouquet by a couple of cms. Please avoid kitchen scissors! These are often blunt from general use at home and the blades are not suited for fresh flowers or foliage. Using these will crush the bottoms of the stems and make it harder for water and flower food to be taken up, risking your flowers going over prematurely.

The best tools for cutting your stems are a sharp pair of secateurs or (for best, professional results) a sharp knife. Cut each stem at a sharp 45 degree angle, before placing your bouquet in water. Ensure no foliage or flower matter appear below the water line – this will only accelerate bacteria multiplying in the water and stop you enjoying your flowers for a longer amount of time.

Now you have a beautiful bouquet of flowers, ready to enjoy! Remember to change the water regularly – on average every 2-3 days and repeat all steps above (clean vase, recut stems, remove excess foliage) in order to prolong the display.

It’s important to understand that some flowers will always naturally go over quicker (e.g. roses) than others (e.g. alstromeria or chrysanthemum), so simply snip away any stems that have come to the end of their cycle, whilst still enjoying the others.