With Valentine’s having just passed, many of us might be looking at beautiful bouquets bestowed by our sweethearts and wondering how to keep them fresh for as long as possible (the flowers, that is, but maybe your beau as well).
If the thought of experimenting with a ton of home remedies found online sounds exhausting, you’re in luck! Someone decided to test a whole handful of them to see which worked best for perfectly preserved petals.
In a 7-minute clip posted to TikTok, life-hack enthusiast and former circus clown “The Gooch” made his own little science project using multiple roses placed in vases of water, each with a different variable: a blend of sugar and bleach, Red Bull, pennies, popcorn kernels, 7 Up, alkaline batteries, denture tablets, aspirin and, naturally, the florist-provided flower food packet, which itself contains some kind of sugar, citric acid and biocide, such as bleach.
Some of these ingredients, like the sugar bleach, came at the recommendation of The Gooch’s “florist friend.” Others, like the alkaline batteries, were simply pulled from the almighty internet.
The Gooch let the roses sit for 7 days, each flower covered by a cylinder made of colored construction paper, before he gave the big reveal.
The results of the first couple of roses—the ones given Aspirin and 7 Up—wasn’t anything to write home about. In fact, The Gooch remarked that the 7 Up rose looked “sad.”
From there, the experiment had both unexpected losers, like the expert recommended sugar-bleach solution, and some surprising winners, like the denture tab solution which actually proved to be “ pretty amazing.”
One of the biggest surprises of all came from the alkaline batteries, which did keep the rose remarkably fresh, even if it made the water look like it came from a sewer.
In the end, the best result came from tablets, popcorn kernels, batteries, flower food and pennies, with the latter two being the best solutions overall.
@the_gooch Tasting what keeps flowers fresh longer #flowers #experiment #valentines #valentinesday #valentine #roses #fyp #foryou #foryourpage #longervideos #longvideo #longvideos #tipsandtricks ♬ original sound – The Gooch
After The Gooch’s video went viral, amassing nearly 22 million views, others began offering their own flower preserving tips.
“I do flower food, copper pennies (b4 1983) and ice cubes in the water. Replace water weekly. Flowers will last for 3-4 weeks,” one person wrote.
Another added, “when I was in school we were taught to cut our roses under water so that an air bubble isn’t created in the stem.”
Still, one florist noted that the real key is far more simple.
“The most impactful thing is to change the water every day (I’m a florist) — flower food has food (sugar) and a little bleach too to try and minimize bacteria, but clean water is the most helpful!” they wrote.
Adding onto that, the website Green Fresh Florals recommends to continue trimming the bouquets’ stems every few days, removing any leaves that would sit below the water line and not only changing of the water every couple of days, but putting the stems in warm water than slowly transitioning to cool water to prolong vibrancy.
Or you could follow this viewer’s advice, who joked, “[The] ultimate trick is to leave them on the rose bushes, it’s hands down the best method.”
Source: https://www.upworthy.com/keep-valentines-flowers-fresh-for-longer
