By Pat Dray
The Garden Spot
Pat Dray.
Now that you’ve put a lot of hard but fun work into your garden, I hope that you’re enjoying the “flowers of your labor” and cutting flowers and foliage to create a sense of nature in your personal space.
Mixing some cut stems and leaves from your shrubs and foliage plants will really fill out any flower arrangements that you make. The one tip for using foliage with flowers is to consider scale. If your flower blooms are small, avoid using oversize leaves with them. Otherwise the flowers are lost in the foliage.
Immediately after cutting your blooms and greens in the garden, submerge them in cool water. If blooms look a bit wilted, you can submerge the entire cutting and leave them in a cool place to rehydrate.
Once you’ve gathered all your plant material and are ready to arrange them in a vase, you can prepare your flower preservative. The commercial flower preservatives generally contain a sugar, an acidifier and an antibacterial agent. The sugar is helpful to keep the stem blooming. The acidifier is there to change the water pH to acidic so that the plant sap can take up the water and sugar. The antibacterial keeps bacteria from growing in the water, which clogs the stems and can prevent the uptake of the sugar and water. The usual mix is one packet to a pint of warm water. Measure and don’t add extra water, since it will dilute the ingredients too much.
If you don’t have any commercial preservative, you can make one by adding a teaspoon each of sugar, household bleach and two teaspoons of lemon or lime juice to a quart of warm water.
Using your clippers or scissors (as always sterilized with rubbing alcohol), cut off at an angle about an inch from the bottom of the stem. The angled cut prevents the stem from resting flat on the bottom of the vase, allowing better uptake of water and nutrients. Remove any tired-looking leaves from the stem as well as any that would be below the water line in the vase.
You can then arrange your flowers and foliage in whatever manner pleases you. If your vase has a wide opening and your flowers won’t stay where you want them, take some clear tape and make a grid at the opening of the vase. This will be the structure to hold your flowers in place.
Remember to recut your stems, empty the water, clean the container and refill it with fresh solution every few days. You’ll find your cut flowers lasting a week or more. Keeping your flowers in a cool place and out of direct sunlight will also help to extend their life.
If you’re interested in learning more about growing and showing plants and flowers, consider joining your local garden club. You can find clubs in your area by visiting ctgardenclubs.org.
Pat Dray is a past president of the Garden Club of Orange and a master gardener.