If you’re anything like me, you love fresh flowers in your home. They can offer a beautiful burst of colour and fragrance and always succeed in brightening up any space.
If you’re lucky enough to have access to fresh flowers from your garden, you can create gorgeous bouquets for yourself.
It’s good to bear in mind however that different species of flowers need to be picked differently, and maintained differently after picking. Some flowers can be picked well before their buds open – the buds then open later in the vase, other species must have the flower at least partially opened as they won’t open if picked too early.
Things to know when picking flowers:
- Pick your flowers as early as possible in the day, especially on hot days.
- Check the flowers before picking to see if they have any pests or disease – you don’t want to be bringing these inside!
- Use sharp cutting tools when cutting flowers and dip the tools in disinfectant before cutting the flowers. This ensures as little damage as possible is done to the plant you are cutting flowers from and minimises the spread of diseases.
- Take the cut flowers inside as soon as possible to prevent them from drying out.
- Flowers cut in warm conditions will have a lot of heat in the plant tissue, and unless cooled quickly, that heat will continue to hasten deterioration. Best to put your cut flowers in nice cold water as soon as possible after cutting.
- Position and enjoy!
