How Vitamin C can help flowers

Sending and receiving fresh flowers brings great joy both to the sender and recipient. When you receive a beautiful bouquet, the one thing everyone wants is to make sure that they last as long as possible. There are a number of ways of helping your flowers longer. Trimming the stems and changing the vase water regularly is a good start. Another tip that might not be as well known is that adding Vitamin C to the water can help keep them fresher for longer.

When you cut flowers directly from the plant, the stems will experience a certain amount of trauma and stress. This can cause the flowers to wilt prematurely and their petals will start to fall. When we suffer from stess, our bodies can also suffer in more ways than one. Vitamin C is commonly used to help prevent us from getting sick. Flowers can also enjoy an extended life if we add some Vitamin C to the water.

In plants, Vitamin C helps them metabolize other vitamins. By speeding up the metabolic rate, the amount of nutrients that each stem can absorb increases significantly. More nutrients means that the flowers enjoy the same benefits that we enjoy when following a healthy eating plan.

Giving your plants Vitamin C helps protect them from the harmful rays of the sun and ensures efficient photosynthesis. As for cut flowers, they will not need to use as much energy to absorb water and nutrients thanks to Vitamin C in the water. An efficient rate of absorption means that your flowers won’t need to work as hard to absorb everything they need to stay fresh and beautiful.

It’s also interesting to note that plants make their own Vitamin C. The GDP-L-galactose phosphorylase enzyme is responsible for this and this is nature’s way of protecting the plant from those UV rays. When the flower is cut from the plant, the ability to produce Vitamin C is also halted and this is why it’s a good idea to add some to the water.

Remember, just adding Vitamin C to your vase water will not make your flowers last longer. You also need to follow the florist’s care instructions. This means that you need to keep your flowers away from any source of heat, air conditioners, direct sunlight, and you need to provide clean water regularly.