February 14, 2005

1:38 PM

I just bought a dozen roses on my lunch break. Can't leave for work for 5 more hours. While I'm storing them in a glass of water, should I also snip the ends? Then do it again after surprising my sweetheart? Or just let them sit in peace?
posted by danny boy to (7 comments total)

Did you get a packet of flower preservative with them? If you didn't, you should have, especially for what you paid for roses today. Add 1/3 of the packet to the water, if you got it. More importantly, you should snip the ends on a diagonal, UNDER WATER - either under running water from a tap, or fill a sink part way and snip while the stems are submerged. After you snip, immediately plunge them back into the glass of water. They should be fine.

The warmer the air, the quicker they open, too. Some people like the tightly furled look, others like their roses to be "blown". (Yeah, they like that... ;)
posted by iconomy at 2:02 PM on February 14, 2005

I've heard that Vitamin E + Vitamin C + some sugar in water will do the job if you don't have flower preservative around. Heck, throw in a multivitamin.
posted by brool at 2:17 PM on February 14, 2005

I didn't get the preservative powder, the cheap bastards. I will definitley be cutting them and all that tonight at home, but was wondering if I should do it now, too.

I guess I don't know if the roses will wilt if I store them without the cutting for just about 4 hours.

And no, I don't want to blow my roses.
posted by danny boy at 2:26 PM on February 14, 2005

You don't need to snip now. The sealed end actually will hold in enough moisture for a few hours. When you snip, though, look for the outer petal with a white stripe inside and pluck that one off - it will help the rose open properly...
posted by judith at 3:36 PM on February 14, 2005

Thanks, judith!
posted by danny boy at 3:45 PM on February 14, 2005

Bah. You should have cut the stems before storing them in water for 4-5 hours. That would have been best for the roses. Sealed ends make the hydration process less effective. Poor hydration is one of the conditions that shortens the vase life of roses. I'm sure they were fine, though. Better unsnipped and in water than out of water altogether, although that probably would have worked for you too. Just sayin'.

Oh, and guard petals are a completely different matter. It really depends on the rose whether or not you should remove them and what they might look like.
posted by Buzz at 11:31 PM on February 14, 2005

I disagree with the "best" answer, by the way, and I'm stating this for the record in case anyone else does a search for this. I work for a flower company and we specialize in roses. You should always snip as soon as you are able, because you don't know how long it's been since the stems were last trimmed. Here we trim them right before we hand them to you, but if you've gone to a place where they're already wrapped in cello or in an arrangement, it may have been days since they got a good drink.
posted by iconomy at 6:56 AM on February 15, 2005