Cut Tulips
Cut Tulips Make Beautiful Bouquets
If you are looking for some beautiful flowers that will last a long time inside, you should take a look at cut tulips. Most cut tulips are late-season varieties that flower in May. Because greenhouses can now force tulip bulbs to flower in the winter, you can buy cut tulips when the weather outside is still very bleak.
Cut tulips often have stems that are fourteen to twenty inches tall and large four to five inch flowers. They come in just about any imaginable color including multi-colored varieties and those with double flowers. Cut tulips will last anywhere from a week to ten days.
Here are some ways to care for cut tulips to give them the longest possible life:
When you first bring the tulips home, you should lay the flowers on their own wrapping paper or a newspaper. Cut the tulip stems on a diagonal, taking off a half-inch of stem. The next thing to do is to wrap the tulips up again their bouquet paper so that they are standing straight. The wrapping paper should have the shape of a cone. Don’t let the heads go beyond the top of the paper, but it is OK, even necessary, for the stems to stick out for several inches.
Now take your rewrapped bouquet and place it in water for one to two hours. The paper should be above the water line. When the time is up, once again cut off the bottom of the stems by making a diagonal cut. This time fill the vase with fresh water and add a floral preservative. These are available at any floral shop and consist of a powder that contains plant food plus chemicals that will inhibit bacteria. There are numerous folk remedies, such as adding sugar, bleach, or lemon-line soda to the water, but none of these methods are as good as a floral preservative.
Tulips with long stems look very nice in vases that are tall and straight. The general rule is that the cut tulips should be one-and-a-half times the height of the vase. Tulips have one special quality that not every flower has--the tulips will continue to grow in the vase even after being cut. They can grow up to an additional inch plus they will conform to the shape of the container in which you placed them.
Tulips do not like heat so set your vase away from floor registers and furnace vents. On top of the television is also a bad spot, as is in direct sunlight. For long life it is necessary to top off the water in the vase every day.
Cut tulips can make a nice gift for just about any occasion. A mix of different colored tulips is always a great choice, as are the multi-colored and streaked varieties. Just follow the directions above and your cut tulips will last a long time.