Flower Care Guide: Keep Your Flowers Beautiful for Longer
Fresh flowers bring colour, fragrance and personality into your home, and a little care can help you enjoy them for longer. Serena at Serenity Blooms has put together this practical flower care guide to help you look after bouquets and cut flowers once you bring them home or receive them as a gift.
From preparing your vase to choosing the right place for your arrangement, these simple steps can make a real difference.
How to Care for Fresh Cut Flowers
Whether you've received a beautiful bouquet or treated yourself to fresh flowers, start with the basics:
Use a clean vase to help keep the water fresh
Trim the stems before placing your flowers in water
Remove any leaves that will sit below the waterline
Add flower food according to the instructions provided
Check the water regularly and top it up when needed
Replace cloudy or dirty water with fresh water
Remove individual flowers or foliage as they naturally fade
These small steps help create a cleaner environment for your flowers and keep your arrangement looking its best.
Trimming Your Flower Stems
Before putting cut flowers into a vase, trim a small amount from the bottom of each stem using clean, sharp scissors or secateurs.
Cutting the stems helps refresh the cut surface so the flowers can take up water more effectively.
If your bouquet has been in its vase for several days, you can trim the stems again when refreshing the water.
Choosing the Best Place for Your Flowers
Where you display your flowers can affect how quickly they fade.
Try to choose a cool position away from:
Strong direct sunlight
Radiators
Fires & other heat sources
Draughts
Ripening fruit
Ripening fruit releases ethylene, a natural plant hormone that can speed up the ageing process in many cut flowers, so your vase and fruit bowl are best kept apart.
Keeping the Vase & Water Fresh
Clean water is one of the most important parts of flower care.
Before arranging your flowers, make sure your vase has been thoroughly cleaned. Remove any foliage that would sit beneath the water, as submerged leaves can deteriorate and encourage bacterial growth.
Keep an eye on the water over the following days. If it becomes cloudy or dirty, replace it with fresh water and give the vase a clean before returning the flowers.
Caring for Different Types of Flowers
Caring for Roses
Remove any foliage that would sit below the waterline and keep roses supplied with fresh water. If the outer petals look slightly different from the petals underneath, don't immediately assume the rose is damaged. Roses can have protective outer petals around the bloom.
Keep them somewhere cool and away from strong heat or direct sunlight.
Caring for Tulips
Tulips naturally continue to develop after they've been cut and may bend or move towards light. This is part of their character rather than necessarily being a sign that something is wrong.
Keep their vase clean, refresh the water regularly and display them somewhere cool.
Caring for Freesias
Freesia stems often carry several buds, which can open at different times. As individual flowers finish, carefully removing faded blooms can help keep the arrangement looking tidy while the remaining buds continue to develop.
What Should I Do When Flowers Start to Fade?
Fresh flowers are natural and won't all age at exactly the same rate. You may find that some blooms continue looking beautiful while others begin to fade.
Remove flowers and foliage that have deteriorated, refresh the water and rearrange the remaining stems if needed. A bouquet can often continue to look lovely even after a few individual flowers have finished.
Flower Care When You Have Pets
Some plants and flowers can be harmful to pets, so it's important to consider where arrangements are displayed if you have cats, dogs or other animals at home.
If you're ordering flowers for a household with pets, mention this when speaking to Serenity Blooms. For specific advice about whether a particular plant or flower is safe for your pet, check with your vet or an appropriate animal welfare organisation.
Choosing & Caring for Flowers with Confidence
Not sure which flowers would suit your home, recipient or occasion? You don't need to be a flower expert.
Serena is a City & Guilds Level 4 qualified florist and can offer personal advice when you're choosing flowers, as well as guidance on caring for them afterwards.
Browse our bouquets, explore the flower gallery for inspiration or visit our florist FAQs for answers to other common questions.
Need More Flower Care Advice?
If you've received flowers from Serenity Blooms and you're unsure how best to look after them, you're welcome to ask.
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