flowers

Fall’s Fresh Flowers

All About the Mums

Some classifications include spider mums (flower petals long and tubular, with hooked ends), football mums (fancy mums with incurving petals), and pompon mums (small, stiff, almost globular flowers). Flower colors include white, yellow, orange, bronze, red, purple and pink.

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Chinese herbalists boiled the flower roots as a headache remedy, ate the flowers in salads, and brewed flower leaves to make a festive tea. In 1753, Swedish botanist Karl Linnaeus introduced the flowers into the Western world, combining the Greek words “chrysos” meaning gold and “anthemon” meaning flower, to name this flower “chrysanthemum“. After it’s hollowed out, use flower arranging foam to hold leaves, mums, and filler flowers. An easy fresh flower arrangement is to arrange mums in a shallow bowl. Place light color flowers across the center of bowl and arrange the dark color flowers on either side of the light ones. Bind the flowers by wrapping raffia several times around the flower stems at the point you held the flowers.

Floral Design

Basic Needs of Fresh Cut Flowers

Flowers are a living product; which has been cut from their lifeline, thus creating special needs. Not meeting these needs will result in a quicker deterioration and a shorter life for your flower arrangement.

• WATER Flowers are composed of more than 90% water. Water carries nutrients through the tiny vessels, up the stem and leaves, to the flower. Water keeps the flower fresh, firm and alive after it has been cut from the growing plant.

- Fresh cut flowers must never be allowed to dry out. They must have water at all times.

• FOOD Cut flowers have lost their source of food, so you must provide an energy source for the flower to stay looking fresh. Preservatives are available from your local florist. Forget the aspirin and lemon lime soda tricks; they simply are not a good source of energy for fresh cut flowers.

- Use of no preservative, too little preservative or the improper preservative will decrease flower life span.

• HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT Temperature affects the life of fresh cut flowers. Cool temperatures slow down the deterioration process while warm temperatures speed it up. Excessively hot or cold temperatures will cause a great deal of damage. Flowers also need fresh air, free from pollutants and gases, particularly ethylene to stay healthy.

- Flowers that are placed in the sunlight or near a heat source, including electronic equipment such as a television will harm the life of flowers. Cold drafts or freezing temperatures are another hazard.

• SANITATION To prevent the growth of stem-clogging organisms that will inhibit the life of flowers clean water, tools and air are a must.

- Dirty tools, water and solutions will encourage bacterial growth which clogs stems and prevents the absorption of water.

A word about ethylene gas. Flowers must be protected form fruit and vegetables which gives off ethylene gas as it ripens. Therefore, placing flowers in a food refrigerator is not a good idea. Certain machinery also produces ethylene gas. Look for these characteristics when purchasing quality fresh flowers:

• Flowers should be firm and not limp.
• Stems should be clean, not dark and/or slimy
• Flowers should be free of disease and insects
• There should not be breakage
• Good color should be visible with little or no discolorations
• Single-stemmed flowers should be showing color, about to open
• Cluster or spike flowers should have one or two buds open
• Filler flowers should have one third to one half of the flowers open
• Flowers with centers should be open with green or mostly green centers

Purchasing flowers from a florist should insure that they have been properly cleaned, feed, conditioned and kept away from sources of ethylene gas. Choose beautiful healthy long lasting flowers to enjoy!

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Fresh Felt Flowers Books

Fresh Felt Flowers

17 Stunning Flowers to Sew + Display (Paperback)

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