Strategically placing artful floral arrangements around your home will add a touch of color to interiors and transform your home’s vibe. After all, who doesn’t love gazing at beautiful fresh flowers and drinking in their heady fragrance? But your floral arrangement won’t have the desired effect if you bought a bouquet with the buds still closed. While the internet is inundated with florist-approved techniques to get closed flower buds to open, including blowing on them, running your fingers through the petals, and applying pressure on the stems, you may want to try a simple water hack instead.
Since most flowers are picked as soon as they show color to elongate their life span, they might not have had ample time to bloom to their full potential. Not to mention, the florets are on borrowed time as soon as they’re harvested. This is where the water hack comes in, as it’ll help to hydrate the buds and keep the flowers fresh longer.
How to use the water hack
Begin by removing the packaging from the bouquet; if you’ve already placed the flowers around the house, take them out of their vase. For this hack, you’ll need two containers: one filled with warm water and the other with cold. You’ll also need sharp flower-cutting scissors, like these Jansi shears from Amazon. (Don’t forget to disinfect the scissors before using.) If your flowers are newly bought and not yet cut for display, cut the stems at a 45-degree angle; this will help with water absorption.
Next, place the closed-bud flowers in the container with warm water and leave them be for about a minute. After a minute, move the flowers into the cold water vase and give the buds another 20 minutes or so to open up and bloom to their full potential. You can then transfer the flowers to their vases around the home for display. Note, for all your cut flowers, remember to remove the leaves from their stems; you never want to submerge leaves in water for long, as this quickly can lead to rotting and turning the water toxic.
