Perfect Cut Flowers for Mother’s Day and Any Other Special Occasion

Summary: Perfect cut flowers are feats worth achieving since they celebrate Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and whatever other day the giver and the recipient cherish.

Cut flower bouquet ~ Perfect cut flowers form a colorful bouquet that celebrates a special occasion, such as Mother's Day, or creates a special occasion: Manfred Brückels (Eisenacher), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Perfect cut flowers are difficult to achieve even though April showers and Mother’s Day bring May-cut blooms, according to the May 2016 issue that Consumer Reports releases a month early, in April.

Mandy Walker, Flower Power author in the Product Updates section, brings long-lasting blooms into discussions of FTD, 1-800-Flowers and ProFlowers online flower-delivery services for Mother’s Day. Holiday delivery costs can escalate, and National Retail Federation surveys total USD $2.1 billion spent on Valentine bouquets and $2.4 billion on Mother’s Day in 2015. The author describes coupons and price cuts by accessing the online flower-delivery website a couple of times before ordering and reducing delivery costs by pre-holiday shipments. She explains that flowers can be replaced, or money refunded, if customers are dissatisfied with deliveries or if the blooms do not last for seven days.

Market research by IBISWorld finds that revenue for the last five years is annually down 1.2 percent for walk-in flower shops and up 2.5 for online. Some online orders get passed on to local florists whose flower arrangements arrive in vases whereas virtual businesses have central warehouse flower deliveries sent in boxes.

Local and virtual florists have the same challenge of selling floral arrangements that survive delivery schedules and that sustain fresh fragrances and looks for seven days. Anecdotal information indicates that a penny plunked inside a water-filled vase makes perfect cut flowers from gardens, markets and shops last beautifully at least seven days.

Immediate immersion, placement in cool spots, removal of below-water foliage, replacement of water and stem trims join a penny’s leached nutrients in keeping fragrant flowers fresh.

Kristin Schleiter, associate vice president for outdoor gardens and senior curator at the Bronx's New York Botanical Garden, knows of three temperatures for perfect cut flowers. She leaves cool season-flowering bulbs such as anemones, daffodils and tulips in cool water; other fresh-cut flowers in room-temperature water; and unopened blooms in warm water.

Cut flowers, home-grown or store-bought, must be submerged immediately, before or while removing below-water foliage and stem bottoms, respectively to prevent bacteria and release trapped air bubbles. The bottom one-half-inch (1.27-centimeter) needs to be trimmed from stems every three days since cut flowers take in air bubbles that obstruct proper absorption of water.

Trapped air bubbles occur with greatest frequency when flower arrangements are delivered in boxes or when floral bouquets are transported with stems bound by rubber bands.

Proximity to direct and reflected sunlight and to heating ducts and vents proves to be damaging, deadly or desiccating to perfect cut flowers, home-grown or store-bought.

Packets from local and online flower shops qualify as life preservers since citric acid ensures low pH levels, powder is anti-bacterial and sugar serves as nourishment. A crushed vitamin C tablet diluted in several drops of bleach, gin or vodka and of clear soda or superfine sugar realizes the same life-extending results. The home-made or store-bought refreshment for floral bouquets serves to bolster the additional life-extending measures of changing vase water and trimming stem bottoms every three days.

Perfect cut flowers, be they special home-grown or store-bought ornamental combinations or wildflower mixes, turn Mother’s Day into a fragrant event this coming May 8, 2016.

Pro tips for keeping flowers fresh include immediate immersion and removal of below-water foliage: Consumer Reports @ConsumerReports via Twitter April 4, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

bouquet of perfect cut flowers: Manfred Brückels (Eisenacher), C BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schnittblumenstrauss.jpg

Pro tips for keeping flowers fresh include immediate immersion and removal of below-water foliage: Consumer Reports @ConsumerReports via Twitter April 4, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/ConsumerReports/status/716898123545751552

For further information:

Consumer Reports @ConsumerReports. 4 April 2016. "Plunking a penny into a vase of water won’t keep flowers fresh. But these 7 pro tips will." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ConsumerReports/status/716898123545751552

Walker, Mandy. May 2016. “Flower Power.” Consumer Reports.

Walker, Mandy. March 31, 2016. “How to Keep Flowers Fresh.” Consumer Reports > Home & Garden.
Available @ http://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/how-to-keep-flowers-fresh/

Walker, Mandy. 31 March 2016. “Ordering Flowers Online: Do the Pictures Match What You Get?” Consumer Reports > Shopping Websites.
Available @ http://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/how-to-keep-flowers-fresh/