Beautiful dahlias, Fire. Zinnias last the longest by far in the vase for me. The flowers are long lasting on the plants too if you let them, but I've found this seems to inhibit other buds from opening so they are best cut off anyway.
I was running an experiment with cut flowers. With a bunch of sunflowers and a bunch of snapdragons (bought). I
- trimmed the stem ends
- added flower food to the water
- half of both bunches I plunged in boiling water for 30 seconds. Half I didn't.
I wanted to see if the boiling water trick really makes a difference. I usually have cut flowers in the house, so it would make a difference to me.
Now, after two weeks - the results with the snap dragons. A stark difference between the boiled stems and the unboiled stems. Putting the stems in boiling water seems to have given these sunflowers and snapdragons an extra four days looking good in a vase (with flower food added).
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