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You’ve just been given (or bought for yourself) a beautiful, fragrant bunch of fresh flowers, and your immediate thought is — how can I get these to last? Aside from snipping the stems at a diagonal with garden shears, kitchen scissors or even a sharp knife before plopping the bouquet in a vase of water, what else can you do to make the blooms stay alive longer?

Ahead, five things you can do to make cut flowers last longer. Yes, some ways might be obvious, but they’re still worth being reminded of. Flowers really can bring colour and life to a space, so they’re worth knowing how to care for!

First thing’s first, you’ll want to make sure you’re putting the flowers in the right vase for them. Bigger blooms should be cut short and put into a low vase, where they have enough room to spread out when they open, but still, be able to support each other.

More delicate, thin flowers should be kept in a taller vase. Also, be sure never to crowd a vase — if one bouquet crowds the vase, make two out of it and use a second vase.

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Any leaves that fall below the water line in the vase should also be cut off with shears or scissors. Then, every few days when you’re changing the water, check the flowers to cut off any dead leaves and petals.

The vase should be filled with room temperature water. Every few days, take out the bouquet to re-snip the stems of the flowers, clean the vase and change the water.

Many bouquets come with a packet of flower food that you can mix in room temperature water before putting the flowers in. If your bouquet didn’t come with flower food, some suggest adding sugar to the water, or soda water with sugar in it.

Where you position the flowers is important. While, of course, you want to place them in an area where you’ll see them often so you can appreciate them regularly, you’ll also want to make sure that spot is away from direct sunlight and appliances that generate high or low temperatures like the air-con, stove or even a TV. Also, place them away from open windows, which can dehydrate them more quickly.

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