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The Flower Crew & How to Care for Your Bouquets

Posted by: on Jul 8, 2013

Whether you are getting our Flower Share or enjoying bouquets from the farmers’ market or stand, we wanted to share some tips about care for flowers.

Jess, Julia, and Alana stand holding bouquets.

Meet Jess, Julia, and Alana! Our 2015 flower crew did a tip-top job keeping our blooms healthy and happy.

Our Flower team gets up the earliest of all the crew, to pick the blooms when the day is coolest, starting at 5:30 am. They harvest in the morning for freshness, then they arrange bouquets later in the geothermally-cooled root cellar.

The flowers at Red Fire are grown organically, so feel free to stick your nose down into them to get the best of the scents. Not all the flowers we grow are fragrant, but many are, and we also often include fragrant herbs in bouquets to help take care of your nose as well as your eyes.

 Tips for Keeping Your Flowers Fresh:

Flower stems are like pipes bringing water up to the bloom. You want to keep the pipes clean of any bacteria that may grow in the vase in order to have longer lasting flowers. Here are a few methods:

  • Keep your vase as clean as your dinner dishes, changing the water often.
  • Re-cut stems about 2 inches above the tip when you get home.
  • Any foliage that ends up below the water line of the vase will quickly gum up the water, so strip off any leaves that might get wet.
  • Keep your flowers in a relatively cool spot, ideally out of the sun.
  • Remove individual elements of the bouquet as they wilt. Some flowers have longer vase lives than others and removing the delicate ones will help keep the water clean and the bouquet looking fresh.

Home-Made Flower Food

asiatic lilies

Asiatic Lilies are the natural fireworks of July!

Try a recipe of these flower preservatives to fill your vase.

Cut Flower Preservative Recipe #1
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon household chlorine bleach or 1 crushed aspirin tablet
1 quart warm water

Cut Flower Preservative Recipe #2
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon household chlorine bleach or 1 crushed aspirin tablet
1 quart warm water

Did you know we also do flowers for special events like weddings?

wedding bouquet of flowers

Sarah Voiland’s bridal bouquet.

You can order arrangements of various sizes, as well as DIY buckets of flowers. Organic, local and very beautiful. Contact us at flowers@redfirefarm.com to set up a time talk to us about your design ideas and what’s in season for your event.

Some event options:

  • Pick Your Own flowers with your bridal party
  • DIY buckets of flowers by color or variety to arrange your own bouquets
  • Arrangements to-order designed by our Flower Grower
  • Have your favorite florist order organic flowers from us to have local flowers for your event

 

Enjoy a gorgeous season!