Steps for conditioning the flowers to take to the store tomorrow — I am still learning, so I may get things wrong, please correct me if so, I am not a professional florist! Conditioning should make cut flower arrangements last longer, and you can totally do this for your own flowers at home.
1) put some warm water in the clean bucket, and some flower preservative
2) cut flowers in the evening (I could use a headlamp, the phone flashlight is not ideal; I may have dropped the phone in the bucket at one point, oops, thank goodness they’re much more waterproof these days)
3) transfer the daffodils to another container
4) strip off any foliage that isn’t going to be used for arrangements, and that will be under the waterline
5) add more water (no need to submerge the blooms, though — although you do submerge woody plants completely)
6) put the daffodil stems in boiling water for 20 seconds (or apparently you can use a flame to sear the ends? sounds scary)
7) add daffodils back to bucket, put in cool dark place overnight
The fun part will be making the little mini bouquets tomorrow ($15). This week is Thalia white daffodils, leucojum (summer snowflake), pink and purple tulips, plus some yellow species tulips whose name I’m forgetting…
I may bring in some flowering branches on Friday, but it had gotten too dark for me to prune trees by the time I finished with these. 🙂
