Top Tips: How to Prolong the life of your Wedding FlowersPosted by Kim Rix on July 14th, 2010
Dear Bride & Groom,
A couple of weeks ago I coordinated a fabulous wedding reception event in East London. If you’re a Londoner or here on holiday, you’ll know that the weather has been absolutely sizzling for the last few weeks – not your typical UK Summer temperatures, as last experienced in July 2006. So, when I was informed that the wedding flowers were being collected from Covent Garden Flower Market more than 36 hours in advance of the wedding event, I felt somewhat uneasy. So I decided to ask Elizabeth Marsh, an award-winning florist, what she advises Brides about “how to prolong the life of your flowers and make sure they are at their best for your wedding or special event”. Here’s her response:
“A gas called ethylene, which is colourless and odourless, is produced by the old flowers and vegetables, amongst others, and can significantly reduce the life of your flowers. It is important therefore to keep flowers away from fruit and vegetables (eg the fruit bowl might be out of bounds), smoke in the atmosphere etc and make sure that storage areas for the flowers are well ventilated. It also helps to keep them cool, as this reduces their sensitivity to ethylene.
Insects and disease can also affect flowers, especially an infection called ‘gray mould’ which can result if the flowers become wet, for example if too many flowers are crammed into one bucket on a hot day and the flowers sweat and so become damp. If the flowers are left in a box, eg for transportation purposes, and that box is left in the heat at all, once it cools down the condensed moisture could well result in spoilage. Finally, storing flowers for too long even under the correct conditions can also leave the flowers susceptible to gray mould. One other factor that renders flowers prone to infection is damage when conditioning them. For this reason always use a sharp knife to cut the stems, handle the heads as little as possible, and be careful not to hold them too tightly.
As cut flowers are removed from the source of food that has sustained them so far, adding a little sugar to the water whilst conditioning them will help to boost them, although after a few hours it might be best to remove them from the sugar solution and put them in plain water. The addition of sugar can enable the buds to develop properly, attain larger sizes and last longer. However be careful not add too much sugar as this can damage the foliage on some flowers.
Some flowers, especially some tropical varieties can sustain chilling damage if refrigerated, so be careful with anthuriums, gerberas, heliconias bouvardia, orchids, birds of paradise etc– these might be better left out of the fridge (if you have one).
Finally, dirty water in the vase or the bucket will produce algae which are sucked up the flower stem and cause blockages so that the flower cannot drink water any more. To keep the water clean, change it daily, recut the stems each time to remove the initial stages of rot from the tips and possibly add a little bleach.
These are just a few of the things you can do to ensure you have perfect flowers for your special occasion.”
Source: Dr J. N. Sacalis: commercial floral design
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