She has shared the two ingredients you need to add to your vase to keep shop-bought flowers blooming for weeks
Fresh flowers can brighten up any room with colour and life, but shop-bought flowers sometimes don’t last as long as we’d like.
However, a cleaning and lifestyle TikToker has revealed the two ingredients she uses in vases to keep her store-bought flowers flourishing “for weeks”.
Chantel Mila, known as Mama Mila on social media, revealed that two kitchen cupboard essentials could be the secret to long-lasting blooms.
If you prefer avoiding chemical products to preserve your flowers, Chantel recommended using sugar and white vinegar instead, , reports the Express.
What you need to do
When your flowers are ready for display, fill a vase with water and add one tablespoon of sugar.
Then add two tablespoons of white vinegar to prevent bacterial growth.
If you haven’t trimmed the stems yet, Chantel suggested cutting the ends at a 45° angle underwater and ensuring they’re completely submerged. This prevents air from getting into the stems.
Vinegar helps cut flowers last longer by stopping bacterial growth in the vase water.
Gardening Know How explained: “Those preserving cut flowers with vinegar are essentially lowering pH, which in turn, increases the acidity. This increase helps to create an environment that is less suitable for the growth of bacteria, which is often the culprit in the speed of decline in freshness of the flowers.”
Vinegar should never be used alone when caring for your blooms, according to Gardening Know How. The experts suggest a mix of roughly two tablespoons each of vinegar and dissolved sugar for every one-quart vase.
Sugar plays a crucial role in keeping flowers alive. Once cut, flowers start to miss out on nutrients provided by photosynthesis, as explained by Teleflora.
Adding sugar to the water in the vase helps continuously feed the flowers with essential nutrients, as it dissolves and draws in the water over time. However, this sweet addition comes with a downside.
Teleflora warns that sugar can also promote bacterial growth, which can cause your flowers to smell and lead to their rapid decay. That’s why it’s recommended to pair sugar with vinegar to prevent this growth.