CUT FLOWERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4220, 6 December 1939, Page 4

CUT FLOWERS

LONGER LIFE. To get the fullest possible value from your cut flowers, there are several methods of treating them that will considerably lengthen their life. Many flowers of the daisy variety, such as asters, will keep fresh twice as long as usual if they are kept in water in which sugar has been dissolved. Use a teaspoon of sugar to each quart of water. This treatment also prolongs the freshness of tulips. Some popular flowers like poppies have hollow stems which bleed when cut, and if they are not properly treated they have a very short life. Immediately they are picked the ends of the stalks must be sealed either by standing the bottom inch or two of the stems in boiling water for a minute, or by scorching the cut ends in a flame. Another hint that ensures poppies and similar flowers that drop their petals rather quickly lasting very well is to put a drop or two of thin, clear gum right in the heart of each bloom. As an alternative tq gum a little gelatine can be melted and dropped into each flower. This sets and holds the petals so that flowers treated in this way keep much longer than usual.

Always crush of split open for a few inches the ends of stalks of hard stemmed flowers, which include roses, branches of flowering shrubs and chrysanthemums. Then keep them in vases of water in which either alum or ordinary salt has been added at the rate of two teaspoons to a quart of water.

Clean water in vases or bowls are essential for the freshness and long life of flowers, and to help keep the water sweet and clean the leaves of wallflowers, stocks and other leafy stemmed flowers should be stripped off the stalks up to where, they go into the water. The water in vases ought to be changed about every other day in order to prevent it from going dirty and sour. Each time the water is changed clip off a small piece from the ends of the stalks of all flowers except those like poppies, with hollow stems. A few lumps of charcoal in a vase will often save frequent changing of the water, though more water must be added as the flowers drink it up. Flowers keep at their freshest when placed in the coolest part of a room.