Nearly one in four Americans will buy flowers for their special someone this Valentine’s Day.
Vince Petrovsky, owner of Heaven and Earth Floral, offered us five inside secrets to make your Valentine’s Day flowers last.
The overall theme of his advice is that it’s not the age of the flowers but instead it’s how we treat flowers once they get to our home.
"We plan for the customer that just puts them on the table and forgets about them," said Petrovsky.
Here are the five tips:
1) No direct sunlight. The cooler they are the longer they last. That's why you see florists refrigerate their flowers.
2) Cut the stems and change the water in a vase every 2-3 days and you should have fresh flowers for 2-3 weeks.
3) 7Up or Sprite instead of plant food. Petrosky said, "It's true. It's almost the same as flower food." It's sugar and something about the ingredients that makes this work. Don't substitute Diet 7Up or Diet Sprite. That won't help your flowers… because there's no sugar.
4) Don't place flowers near fruit Petrovsky said fruit releases ethylene which is a ripening agent to flowers. Petrovsky found that out the hard way. "One time I had to buy a lot of apples, I mean boxes of apples for an event and all the orchid flowers fell off in the shop," said Petrovsky.
5) Where you buy flowers matters. If you're buying from a grocery store or gas station the flowers are usually sitting out at room temperature. Petrovsky said, “They're aging as they're sitting there whereas the refrigeration slows that down."
