How to Care for Your Flowers

Fresh Flower Care

The do's the don'ts

Everything You Need to Know About Caring for Fresh Flowers

You just got flowers. Maybe you picked them up from us on South Broadway or Union Station, maybe they arrived on your doorstep, maybe someone who loves you sent them. Either way, they deserve to last. Here's how to actually make that happen.

Step One: The Moment They Come Home

This is the most important window. Flowers get stressed in transit—they've been out of water, possibly jostled around, maybe sitting in a warm car. What you do in the first thirty minutes sets the tone for everything that follows.

CUT THE STEMS. EVERY TIME.

You've probably heard that you should cut your stems at an angle every single time you touch the flowers. The truth? You should definitely cut the stems, but no need to cut at an angle. Here’s what we recommend instead. For wrapped designs that you're placing into your own vase, a fresh cut when you first get them home (and again at each water change) makes a real difference. Use a sharp knife or floral shears — scissors crush the stem rather than cut cleanly, restricting water uptake. Cut about an inch up from the bottom, and do it under running water if you can to keep air bubbles out.

For designed in-vase arrangements, please don't pull everything out to recut — you'll end up wrestling with a ball of chicken wire or disturbing the whole design stem by stem. After several days, you can carefully pull out any spent blooms, discard them, and recut those individual stems before returning them to fresh, clean water. Just be cautious working around the chicken wire — the ends can be sharp (and sometimes rusty). We say this from experience: please try not to stab yourself.

COLD, CLEAN WATER. THAT'S YOUR DEFAULT.

Fill your vase with cool, fresh water—not hot, not warm, and ideally not straight from a very chlorinated tap. Room temperature is fine. Cold is great for most varieties. If your arrangement came with a little packet of flower food, use it. That packet isn't just marketing, it contains a sugar for energy, an acidifier to help water travel up the stem, and a biocide to slow bacterial growth. All three matter.

DIY flower food, if you've run out: In-vase arrangements come with flower food. But in case you run out when topping off or switching out your water, here’s a great DIY recipe. Mix a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of white vinegar or lemon juice, and a half-teaspoon of household bleach into a quart of water. It's not glamorous, but it works on the same principles as the real thing.

PULL THE LOWER LEAVES.

Step Two: Where You Put Them Matters More Than You'd Think

Placement is genuinely underrated when it comes to flower longevity. The most beautiful spot in your home might not be the best spot for the flowers—and it's worth thinking about.

Keep them away from direct sunlight, heating vents, and anything that blows warm or dry air. A sunny windowsill looks gorgeous in photos, but heat accelerates aging and speeds up ethylene production. A cool room with indirect light is the sweet spot for most fresh arrangements.

Fruit seems like a natural companion on a kitchen table, but keep your flowers at a distance. Ripening fruit releases ethylene gas, which causes flowers to age faster. Bananas are particularly intense offenders. Move the fruit bowl to the counter; give the flowers the table.

If you have a particularly hot stretch of weather—hello, Denver summers—consider moving your arrangement to a cooler room overnight, or even placing it in the refrigerator for a few hours. Don’t skip this step if your flowers are for an upcoming event! Stick them in a cooler or the refrigerator before they’re ready to be displayed. Florists keep their coolers for a reason. The cold dramatically slows aging. A cool bedroom at night, or a few hours in the fridge when the house is warm, can add days to an arrangement's life.

Step Three: The Ongoing Routine

Good flower care isn't complicated, but it is consistent. Here's what to build into your routine.

CHANGE THE WATER EVERY TWO TO THREE DAYS.

Bacteria accumulate in vase water, and once the water gets murky, it's working against your flowers rather than for them. Don't just top off—dump it out, rinse the vase, and start fresh. Give the stems a quick snip while you're at it. Each recut opens up any blockage and helps the flowers keep drinking. It's five minutes, twice a week. Worth it.

WATCH THE WATER LEVEL.

Some flowers are thirsty. Sunflowers, hydrangeas, and lilacs especially tend to drink faster than you'd expect. Check the vase every day or two and top up as needed. Letting a vase run dry—even briefly—can cause the stems to take in air and stop being able to absorb water afterward.

REMOVE THE ONES THAT ARE DONE.

Mixed arrangements don't all peak at the same time, and that's okay—it's one of the things that makes them interesting. But when individual stems are spent, pull them. A wilting flower releases ethylene and accelerates the aging of everything around it. Editing the bouquet as it evolves isn't giving up; it's taking care of what's still there. Some arrangements look even better slightly smaller, as the remaining flowers open and breathe.

A Note on Specific Flowers

Tulips
Tulips keep growing after they're cut, they can grow an inch or more in the vase and will bend toward any light source, which can look either charming or chaotic depending on your tolerance for it. They prefer cold water and a cool room. If they're drooping dramatically, try wrapping them tightly in newspaper and re-cutting the stems, then leaving them in cold water overnight. They often revive.
Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are big drinkers and wilt easily if stressed. If yours are drooping, try submerging the whole head in cool water for about thirty minutes. Sometimes they bounce back completely. It sounds extreme, but it can work beautifully.
Orchids
Known to be low-maintenance once cut, but prefer clean, shallow water and stable temperatures. Avoid placing them near ripening fruit or heat sources, as they’re sensitive to ethylene and can fade more quickly. Removing any spent blooms helps keep the stem looking fresh for longer as new flowers continue to open along the spike.
Woody-stemmed flowers
Woody-stemmed flowers —like lilacs, forsythia, or bottlebrushes—there’s some debate about whether these flowers benefit from having the bottom inch of stem smashed with a hammer or scored with a knife before placing in water. Personally, we don’t see the need to be so rough with our delicate arrangements.
Roses
Roses do best with their guard petals left on—those slightly duller outer petals protect the inner bloom. Only remove them if they're damaged or browning. Re-cut roses to maximize water uptake, and keep them away from cold drafts as well as heat.
Peonies & Ranunculus
Peonies and ranunculus often arrive tightly closed. Put them in warm water in a warm room to encourage them to open, rather than cold water. Once they're open, move them somewhere cooler to extend their life.

When They're Fading: What Comes Next

Fresh flowers don't last forever, and there's something honest about that. But fading doesn't have to mean discarding. Pressing individual blooms between heavy books preserves them for years—greeting cards, framed art, bookmarks. Dried bundles hung upside down in a cool, dark, airy spot can become something entirely different and beautiful. We carry dried arrangements year-round for exactly this reason: there's a whole other life on the other side of fresh.

When the last petals finally fall, the water your flowers lived in is nutrient-rich—pour it into your garden or onto your houseplants rather than down the drain.

The truth is, most people don't think about flower care until something goes wrong. A bouquet droops ahead of a party, or a gifted arrangement fades before the recipient really gets to enjoy it. But a few simple habits change that entirely. Cut, clean water, a good location, and a little attention every few days. That's genuinely all it takes.

We put a lot of care into every arrangement that leaves our shop—locally sourced when possible, designed to hold up and look beautiful. It means a lot when the people who take them home do the same.