When tulips bloom, you can't take your eyes off them! What are just the colors of tulips did not bring breeders lately: yellow, purple, red, white, even ... black! And how beautiful tulips, in which the petals with fringe at the edges! You can endlessly admire such tulips at exhibitions and in greenhouses. But how to preserve cut flowers that are put in a vase so that they please with their beauty for some time?
How and when to cut tulips
- For cutting tulips you need to choose dry, cool weather. If it has recently rained, it is undesirable to cut the flowers, because the drops, having dried on the petals, will leave ugly stains and stains.
- Tulips are cut early in the morning, when the sun had not yet risen. At this time, the flowers are the most strong and resilient.
- You can not cut off already blooming flowers. Such flowers will stay in a vase for a maximum of one day and will quickly wither. Tulips are cut with unopened buds, which can already show their colors.
- Increasingly, tulips are not cut, but dug. In such flowers, the bulb is washed with cold water, and then several tulips are formed into a beautiful bouquet, they are made from ikebana or placed in a basket, covering the bulbs with moss or special turf. These tulips have a longer shelf life than cut flowers.
How to store cut tulips
Tulips are stored at a temperature not higher than + 3-5 °. Flowers can be stored in the basement, cellar or refrigerator.
- Before storing them, for example, before a holiday, lower leaves are removed from tulips. Then gently cut off the edge of the stem with a sharp knife, wrap several flowers in wet paper and place them in a refrigerator in this form, after removing all fruits and greens from it, since the released ethylene can cause active blooming of flowers.
- Tulips are only stored in a dark room, as they react to the slightest, even dim, light. Then the heads of flowers turn to the light, and the stems bend in a fanciful way and remain in this form.
- Before bringing the tulips to fresh air, they should be held at least one hour at room temperature, cutting off the tip of the stem again, and then putting them in a container with cold water for a short time.
- Flowers, if properly stored, can remain fresh and with unblown buds up to ten days.
How to keep cut tulips in water
In order for the tulips to stand in water as long as possible, they need to be prepared for this in the same way as for storage in the refrigerator.
- Tulips are cut in dry weather, preferably at dawn.
- In the tank pour cold distilled water. It is advisable not to use tap water, as the potassium and magnesium, which it contains, clog the vessels of tulips. Also not suitable for flowers hard water. To soften the hardness of water, it is recommended to boil or use distilled.
- Tulips carefully remove the lower leaves so that they do not later come into contact with water and rot. The tip of the stem gently cut with a sharp knife obliquely. It is advisable to do this in water so that air does not get into the vessels of the stem and does not block them. Some growers recommend making a few longitudinal notches on the stem, which significantly increases the life of cut tulips.
- Flowers to be put in a vase with water should be in the form of buds with a pronounced color.
- To prevent water from stagnating, it is recommended to add a piece of wood (activated) carbon to it or pour a little diluted potassium permanganate into the water.
- Tulips respond well to dressing with sugar. To do this, add 3% sugar solution to water (1 tablespoon of sugar per 1 liter of water) and one more aspirin tablet, which disinfects water.
- Water needs to be changed daily.
- A day later, you need to shorten the stem by 1 cm, cutting it obliquely.
- Tulips in a vase should not stand in the sun, but they also do not really like the very dark place. Also, flowers do not like drafts.
- To keep cut flowers in water for a long time, you can use ready-made preparations “Bud” and “Bud 2”. On the principle of their actions there is always information on the package.
- Tulips should not be placed in a vase with other flowers, as many flowers emit substances that have a detrimental effect on neighboring plants. Tulips get along only with thuja and cypress. A cypress tree, placed in one vase with tulips, makes them brighter.
- But you can significantly reduce the toxicity of some flowers that are prepared for the bouquet. For example, red tulips look great with white daffodils that have a red border. But daffodils for tulips is not a very good neighborhood. To reduce the toxicity of daffodils, they need a day to hold in cold water and only then connect with tulips.
If you daily check the condition of cut tulips — both in the refrigerator and in water — then such flowers can keep a fresh look for up to ten days.
