Whilst love may be eternal, sadly fresh flowers received as a gift on Valentine’s Day have a short lifetime so local expert florist Louise Dutfield from The Cracked Pot Flower Boutique shares a few tricks of the trade to help keep your flowers looking their best for longer:
1. If you don’t have an arrangement or hand-tied bouquet, you can make your flowers look lovely in a normal vase – all it needs is some thin clear sticky tape. Simply put tape over the opening of the vase to create a criss-cross grid and place your individual stems in the holes created.
2. Avoid over handling your flowers when arranging them as some – especially white roses – bruise very easy and will be brown the next day.
3. Remove leaves from below the water line, recut the stems and add a tiny drop of bleach to the water, to kill off bacteria in the water and prevent it from going cloudy.
4. Change water often and re cut the stems every few days to keep blooms looking lovely.
5. If possible place flowers in a cool place (not near a radiator) out of direct sunlight – there’s a reason for florists shops being so chilly!
Alternatively why not send one of their fabulous limestone love tablets http://www.thecrackedpot.co.uk/User/Productdetail.aspx?prodid=285 - then your love gesture will surely last a lifetime!!