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Very rarely will we ever tell you to skip the flowers. Not only do they look beautiful and help to perk up a space, they’ve also been scientifically proven to help alleviate daily stress. Yes, really! The key is in making them last as long as possible. We have a few tips for that — and the first (and most important!) one involves making homemade flower food.
What Is Flower Food, Anyway?
Flower food typically comes in a small packet, which you can stir into your bouquet’s water to help the flowers stay fresh, last longer, and keep the water cleaner. Believe it or not, flower food typically only consists of three common ingredients: sugar, citric acid, and bleach. This combo keeps the flowers fed, decreases the risk of bacteria growing in the water, and makes plain tap water more habitable for plants.
How to Make Homemade Flower Food
Flowers need food, water, and a healthy environment, just like us. You’ll often get a little packet of flower food inside your bouquet, or if you’ve ordered your flowers to be delivered — but did you know you can easily make your own? Here’s our basic recipe:
All you need to do is combine the ingredients above to make the best DIY flower food before placing your flowers in the vase with the solution. The sugar is the actual food for the flowers, while the bleach helps to slow fungi and bacteria growth and the citric acid from the lemon acidifies the water to lower the pH level.
Common Homemade Flower Food Variations
If you want to take it up a notch, you can adjust the sugar based on the type of flowers in your vase. For example, gerbera daisies can handle more sugar, while daffodils don’t like any sugar at all. Here’s a helpful chart with recommended sugar percentages from the University of Massachusetts for different varieties of cut flowers.
Researchers at Purdue University found a few other recipes for homemade flower food to work exceptionally well: lemon-lime soda with bleach and sugar; and white vinegar, sugar, and bleach.
Another common variation is to use citric acid instead of lemon juice in your homemade flower food if you have it on hand. It’s not only great for cooking and cleaning, but in its purest form is an easy way to add a touch of citrus if you don’t have any lemons lying around.
How Often Should You Replace Homemade Flower Food?
As soon as the water turns cloudy, it’s a good sign to change your cut flowers’ water and add more food. This is typically every 2 to 3 days, but sometimes more often depending on the type of flower and the temperature of the environment. The gunk in the water is microorganisms, and the flower food kills bacteria.
5 More Brilliant Tips for Making Cut Flowers Last Longer
You want to open the stems up to the water, so cut off the dried bottoms at an angle to let them soak up as much water as possible. You should do this when you bring new flowers home, but they can also get gummy as they close up while they sit in a vase — so trim the ends every 3 or 4 days. Just an inch or so is good!
2. Remove the lower leaves.
Leaves on the stems and below the water level will quickly deteriorate and promote mold. Remove all leaves from the stems below the waterline. Keep this up as you add water and trim the stems.
Get your flowers into water as soon as possible. But know this: If the water is too hot or too cold, it will shock the flowers — and that’s not good! Treat them like Goldilocks and give them water that’s juuuust right.
4. Place them in a temperate spot.
More Goldilocks-ing: Rooms that are too warm or areas with direct sunlight will cause your flowers to wilt more quickly. Try to keep them in a cool, shady place.
5. Change the water often!
It’s ideal to change the water every one or two days — before it gets cloudy! When you do, scrub the vase’s interior, re-trim the stems and add your homemade flower food to the water at the same time. Pull out the duds that haven’t seemed to hold up as well as the others.
