My own garden taught me why customers complain about wilted roses

I've been arranging flowers for almost 15 years and last month I finally got it. I have a small rose patch behind my house in Portland, about 20 bushes. Three years ago I trimmed some blooms in the morning before work, put them in a vase, and they looked sad by noon. Last week I cut them at dusk instead, right before the sun went down, and the same variety stayed perky for five days. Made me think about all the deliveries I've done where the stems sat in a hot truck for hours. Now I tell every new customer to ask their florist when the flowers were actually cut, not just arranged. Has anyone else noticed a big difference between morning cut and evening cut stems?

3 comments

3 Comments

hernandez.gavin22h ago

Timing is everything in life, people just don't realize it until something flops on them.

fionamurphy21h ago

Huh. That's a good point about truck time too. But here's what I'm wondering - did you test this more than once? One good result with evening cut stems could just be a fluke depending on the weather that day or how hydrated the plant was. I'd want to see if it holds up over a month of different temperatures and humidity levels before I'd trust it as a real thing. Have you tried it with different rose varieties or just the one?

wade_anderson18h ago

timing is everything" - but what about how the soil temp changes throughout the day?