Flowers and plant materials grow old, wilt and die, much to the disappointment of all of us who would love to be able to keep on admiring lovely vases and containers of cut flowers for weeks or months. The process that causes this to happen is called senescence. The good news is you can act to slow it down.
One important thing to do to slow your flowers’ inevitable demise is to control how much ethylene gas they get exposed to after they’re picked. Ethylene is the gas responsible for ripening (and then decaying) fruit such as apples, melons, tomatoes and bananas. Keeping flowers away from ripening or decaying fruit helps prolong the flowers’ life.
So don’t buy flowers from retailers who have them arranged nicely (or horridly) in or around their fruit and vegetable section. And keep your flowers well away from ripening fruit at home. Of course you need to keep up the fresh water in your vases, and keep your flowers away from heat and the sun as well.
Whilst you may not be tempted into the fruit and veg section of your local store to buy your flowers because of all that lurking ethylene, do go there for unripe avocadoes! Grab a few, take them home and put them in a paper bag with some (yes you guessed) ripening apples or other ethylene producers, put the bag in a dark, cool cupboard and voila! A few days later you have fantastic, ripe avocadoes.
But beware having a smoke or running your car engine near those lovely flowers decorating the table you serve your avocadoes on; cigarettes and car engines also produce ethylene!
