I love having fresh cut flowers in the house. It feels like such a luxury to have a big beautiful vase of flowers. During the winter, I often pick up flowers at Aldi. They sell bouquets for around $2.99. They come with the little packets of "flower food". I am not really sure what is in the packets, but I can often make my flowers last two weeks with the food.
During the summer, I often cut my own flowers from my garden. The problem I had for such a long time is getting the flowers to really last. Without the flower food, my flowers were dying in just a couple of days. I tried a couple of old tricks my grandma had recommended. Sprite instead of water and aspirin in the water. No luck with either method. I finally came across a method in an old church recipe book. It works great, I have been able to keep my fresh cut flowers lasting for a week or two.
You will want to start with about 4 cups of water. Mix in a teaspoon of bleach and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Once you have mixed everything together you can pour it in your vase and then add your fresh cut flowers. The bleach will help keep any bacteria from growing in the water and the lemon juice will help improve the water flow in the stems. If you don't like using bleach you can also use a couple of drops of Thieves Oil to keep the bacteria from growing. I like using bleach because it is cheaper.
Every 3-4 days you will want to cut about 1/2 inch off of your stems and put them in a fresh mix of water, bleach, and lemon juice. I have had great results using this trick. My fresh cut flowers from home are now lasting as long as the store-bought.
Stop throwing out flowers after only days. You can easily make your fresh cut flowers last longer than you ever imagined with this simple trick.
