Been arranging roses wrong for 10 years until a customer pointed it out

I had this lady last Valentine's Day watch me put together a bouquet and she goes "you're crushing the stems with those clippers." I was using standard garden pruners instead of proper floral shears. All those years I wondered why my roses only lasted 4 days instead of a week. Anybody else have a customer call them out on something dumb?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_jenkins23d ago

crushing the stems with those clippers" - now I'm wondering if my dull scissors are why my grocery store roses look sad by Tuesday.

hernandez.morgan23d ago

I read somewhere that when you crush the stem with dull or wrong clippers, it messes up the little tubes inside that carry water. The plant basically can't drink right and dies faster. That customer probably saved you a lot of future frustration (and money on dead roses). My mom used to cut her stems with kitchen scissors and always wondered why her flowers drooped by day three. Makes total sense now with the whole tube thing.

charles67823d ago

Yeah the water tubes thing is real, it's called xylem if you want to get technical. Once those get crushed the plant can't pull water up and it starts wilting within hours. Your mom's kitchen scissors probably pinched them shut tight. With dull blades you're basically clamping down and tearing instead of making a clean cut. A sharp pair of pruners or even a sharp knife works way better, just snip at a 45 degree angle and you're golden. I've had roses last nearly two weeks just by using a sharp blade and changing the water every couple days.