A Practical Guide to Fancy Flowers on a Budget

How to make flowers last longer, up-chic supermarket roses, make a few stems go a long way, and everything else you need to know...

I’ve put together a practical little guide of some useful tips and tricks for flower arranging that I’ve picked up over the years. Just a few ideas for those of us who love having flowers on the table (and/or dotted around our home), but also don’t quite want to spend the earth to get them. It’s by no means a comprehensive guide, but hopefully a helpful starting point; and if you have any more tips to add, these are very gratefully received (thank you!) so please do pop them in the comments below…

1. Always start with clear, clean water. This is the most important thing of all. You can add flower food, a pinch of sugar or some bleach to the water, if you like, and supposedly it helps keep the water extra clean and the flowers last extra long; but I don’t usually bother. I’ve never found that it makes a huge difference either way so I save myself the time and the hassle.

2. Strip away any leaves or buds below water height: this is the secret to making flowers last as long as possible. If you have any foliage in the water, it will encourage the growth of bacteria and shorten the life of the flowers. Trust me: this bit is non-negotiable, even though it sometimes feels like a bit of a faff. If you really hate the faff and/or you’re in a real hurry, then think about buying flowers without too much by way of foliage (e.g. tulips) to start with. Or if you’re buying from a florist, ask them to strip the flowers down for you.

3. Before setting your flowers in water, trim away the bottom of their stems at a 45˚ angle: this helps them drink water.

4. Don’t turn your nose up at supermarket flowers: they may look a little iffy in the shop with the strip lighting and the plastic wrapping; but once you’ve got them home, broken up the bunch and re-arranged the flowers in nice vases, you’ll be amazed at how good they look.

5. Fill your vases up with water as high as you can: this seems like a really obvious thing to do, but if your vases have plenty of water in them to start with, they’re less likely to dry out and you don’t need to top the water levels up quite so regularly.

6. If you want your flowers to last longer, then cut the stems as short as you can and strip away as much of the excess foliage as you can. That way all the goodness from the water will go straight to keeping the flower looking its best.

7. If your flowers are starting to look a bit droopy, then plunge the bottom of the stems into boiling hot water for 10 seconds (I know this seems mad, but trust me here). Then trim the ends off, pop the stems back in clean, cold water and watch them slowly come back to life. This is a trick I got from my friend and florist Hannah of Minnow and Wolf, and it’s actual magic.