Tips for Keeping Cut Flowers

Perhaps nothing enlivens a room as well as a spray of fresh-cut flowers. And while they are, sadly, ephemeral, you can utilize a few tricks to keep cut flowers looking fresh for more than a few days. Start fresh. Choose flowers that have fresh-looking leaves and a few closed buds (which will bloom on display). Fully opened, droopy, or browning flowers naturally won't last long in a vase. Once you have your flowers, try to get them in water as soon as possible.

Snip stems. Before placing flowers in a vase, snip stems at a 45-degree angle to maximize their drinking potential. Also, be sure to strip leaves cleanly from the area of the stem that will be inside a vase or, at the least, submerged in water.

Avoid a vice-like vase. Make sure your bouquet has room to move around the mouth of a vase; flowers won't keep well if they're too crowded. Generally, three inches of water is all you'll need to sustain fresh-cut flowers - add much more, and stems will decay faster.

Visit flowers every other day. Once flowers are in a vase, change the water every other day. You may want to give the stems an extra snip as well, and weed out wilting flowers. As your bouquet gets smaller, transfer it to a smaller vase to maximize the flowers that are still thriving - and to enjoy them for as long as possible.