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PSA: Stop over-hydrating your cut flowers before arranging
I spent 2 years soaking every stem in water for hours before arranging, thinking it made them last longer. Then a veteran florist at a shop in Denver watched me do it and said, 'You're drowning them, not hydrating them.' Turns out, leaving roses and tulips in deep water overnight can cause stem rot and actually shorten vase life. Anyone else get told some old tip that ended up being totally backwards?
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paige_bell819d agoMost Upvoted
My grandma told me to smash the ends of tulip stems with a hammer so they'd drink better... turns out she was basically waterboarding them into an early grave.
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margaretc429d ago
Waterboarding them into an early grave" is such a perfect way to put it. My aunt used to do the same thing with her hydrangeas, smashing the stems with a hammer and then putting them in boiling water. She swore it made them last longer but they always looked sad and droopy within a day. I think old gardening tricks like that come from a time when people just tried anything and didn't really question it. These days I just give my cut flowers a fresh diagonal cut and drop them in clean water with a little sugar and they do way better. Funny how grandmas meant well but sometimes their advice was basically plant torture in disguise.
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