Caring for Your Valentine’s Day Bouquet

Did you come back to this blog to see if I bought my wife flowers or planted a tree for her for Valentine’s Day?  Or, were you one of the fortunate ones that received a bouquet of roses or other cut flowers for Valentine’s Day and want to know how to prolong their beauty?

Here are a few tips will help your flowers last longer, maybe even a few weeks!

First, recut the stems at least 1 inch shorter than when you got them. Use a sharp knife and cut at a 45-degree angle.   Immediately submerge the stems in warm water.  Even better is to cut the stems while they are under water.

Be sure and strip off any leaves that would otherwise be immersed in the vase water. Add a packet of flower preservative to the water.  Often this comes with the bouquet.  If not, you can purchase these from a florist or from the floral sections of some discount stores.  If you do not have or cannot find the floral preservative packets, change the water daily in the vase.

Avoid displaying your bouquet in a hot room or in direct sunlight.  You can make your bouquet last even longer is to put the whole thing, into the refrigerator every night before you go to bed and then take it out in the morning.  Putting the bouquet in a cooler part of the house will work to some degree as well.

Remember, cut flower bouquets do not last forever, so take a picture of you with your bouquet so the memories will last long after the flowers have faded.  Or you can press a few of the flowers between pages of newspaper to dry them.  They might not be as colorful but the will be a reminder of the good times.

As for my wife, I bought her a pot of yellow orchids.  And she is very happy!

A Special Arbor Day Celebration in 2014

Two very special things are happening next Friday – Valentine’s Day and Arbor Day in Mississippi.  Both are important days.  One keeps the significant other feeling loved while the other makes Mother Nature happy. So where is your emphasis going to be?

It is nice to have someone to keep you warm on these cold winter nights, but planting trees slows global warming.  The choice is which to celebrate.

Are you going to buy some roses that have been flown in from South America?  This contributes to both a warm body next to you and to global warming.  But stop and think about it for a few moments.  You will pay an excessive amount of money for flowers that will be thrown out in a week and degrade the environment to get them here.  Or you can plant a tree that will last for decades and will clean the environment.

I suggest you start a new trend.  Plant a tree dedicated to that special person on this Valentine/Arbor Day (and all future Arbor Days)!  Yes, you might have to sleep on the couch a few nights while trying to get her to understand this great thing you have done.  But some day when your children or grandchildren are swinging from this tree and the two of you are watching them in its cool shade, you will be seen as a true romantic and a hero saving the planet Earth.

Some of you might be wondering what choice I am going to make.  You will have to check back in the future to find out!