How to Keep Flowers Fresh for Longer

You want this kind of beauty to stick around for as long as possible, right? Worry not; it's incredibly easy to do.

If you want to know how to keep flowers fresh longer, we have the expertise to help. Read on as the expert florists from the Flowers After Hours team guide you through our top tips for keeping your blooms, flowers, and other foliage fresh for as long as possible.

These steps apply to our full range of cut flowers, including flower bouquets, posy bags, and the en masse collection.

Step One: Prepare Your Blooms

As soon as you get home, it's time to give your bouquet the best chance of lasting a long time. While we wrap the bases of our stems in a wet medium to keep them fed and fresh, this won't work for more than 6 hours.

Luckily, preparing your blooms for their new home in your favourite vase is easy. First, make sure you're starting with a clean vase! Bacteria can grow inside dirty vases and potentially kill your flowers early. A bath in hot, soapy water and a thorough rinse will do the trick.

From there, you’ll want to do two things:

1. Cut your stems. When we work with blooms or flowers, we'll have already cut the stems carefully. However, cutting them again at a 45-degree angle before placing them in water helps increase the surface area for water absorption. Use your sharpest scissors to avoid crushing the stem!
2. Remove lower foliage. Leaves sinking below the waterline in your vase can rot and create bacterial growth, so removing those is important. Trim any leaves that will sit below the waterline with sharp scissors.

Step Two: Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate

Water is life for cut flower bouquets! As your flowers sit in their vase, they'll slowly draw water up through the base of the stems, keeping the blooms vibrant and beautiful. In other words, the quality of your water is one of the most important aspects of caring for your cut flowers!

Here are our tips for hydrating your bouquet:

1. Use fresh water. Start by putting your re-cut flowers in room-temperature water (from the tap is fine).
2. Change regularly. Sitting water will start accumulating bacteria that can harm your blooms, so changing it every three days is important.
3. Mist. If you want to go the extra mile, mist the blooms with a light spray of water each morning to keep them hydrated.

Step Three: Extra for (Floral) Experts

We've had many customers ask how to keep fresh-cut flowers alive longer, and some of the best advice we can give is to keep giving the flowers love once they're in your vase! To help with that, here are a few expert-level tips:

1. Re-cut your stems. Every few days, re-cut your stems to help them continue to absorb water properly. Without this, your stems will slowly rot from the bottom.
2. Deadhead your blooms. After a while, the blooms at the top will start to die. Leaving those dead blooms behind will encourage the rest of the flowers to die faster, so it's important to gently cut those away or remove their stems completely.
3. Direct sunlight and heat. Wherever possible, keep flowers out of direct sunlight and heat (not under a heat pump) as light and heat expedites the aging process of the flowers. This tip will help keep your flowers healthier for longer!
4. Hydrangeas special tip. To freshen up your hydrangeas you can dunk the head in water, as this particular flower drinks through its petals.

Those are our best floristry-certified tips for keeping your flowers fresh longer! Keeping your flower bouquet stunning for as long as possible is easy. Whether you've received it or gifted it to yourself, it's easy to preserve that beautiful memory with these simple tips.

Let your life bloom with Flowers After Hours

For our team of expert florists, blooms and flowers are the brushes, and flower bouquets are the art. We take tremendous pride in turning the freshest, highest-quality blooms into unmatched arrangements. Whether decorating an event or celebrating a loved one, our luxurious but accessible range is the perfect place to find your next flower bouquet.

Are you curious about a custom arrangement? As Auckland's luxurious (yet accessible) floral specialists, we're here to help. Contact our Parnell or Botany branch to begin!