Cut Flower Care

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever,” wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Obviously the poet laureate did not suffer from anthrophobia, also known as anthophobia: the fear of flowers.

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All others – and they comprise the majority of people – sooner or later face an age-old conundrum: how to extend the life of cut flowers. Many and fascinating are the ways suggested. Here are 10 of them:

• Fresh water: changed daily, one of the most effective, certainly the simplest
• Bleach: a quarter-teaspoon per litre, added after daily water change, and effective
• Powdered Cut Flower Food: occasionally provided by florists as a single package
• Vodka: a teaspoon per litre, surprisingly effective
• Sugar: essentially the same as florists’ cut flower food, minus the anti-bacteria
• 7-Up, Sprite: said to be the Duchess of Cornwall’s horticultural secret
• Copper Coins: copper is supposedly anti-bacterial but copper coins are now uncommon
• Aspirin: one crushed per litre
• Mouthwash: claimed the most effective for roses, but choose mint-free for this
• Viagra: a milligram dissolved in a solution into the water for two vases of cut flowers; a pill contains 50 milligrams, reported in British Medical Journal (BM)J by scientists in Israel and Australia

Experience, however, indicates that various flowers react differently to the various solutions. In any case, despite Lord Tennyson’s poetical thoughts surely it is questionable that to win someone’s heart, one should present make a bouquet of a plant’s sex organs. Is this why do florists enjoy their occupation so much?

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