Perfect time to get the best out of your roses!

Cut flowers - Tips to enjoy them longer and to have beautiful blooms until late Autumn

Kalangadoo, 1st February 2024

One more month of budding for us, and then we'll start organising the nursery for Autumn and all the jobs that will come with this beautiful season.

We love this period of the year, when all plants in the fields are grown, vigorous and literally covered with flowers. Blooms are at their best now, with their brightest colours and the most intense fragrances you can imagine, and so should be your rose gardens.

In this Newsletter we'll share with you Brian's tips to have great flowers for the next months - hopefully up to the end of Autumn - and to make cut roses last longer in a vase, so you can enjoy them inside your home too.

Order Potted Roses here

Enjoy Cut Flowers until late Autumn

Your roses should be flowering beautifully at the moment, so take the opportunity to cut flowers for your home following Brian's precious tips on how to have them lasting longer in a vase.

It’s best to cut blooms preferably in the morning, from plants that have been deeply watered 1 or 2 days before cutting flowers.
As soon as you cut them, leave the flowers into a bucket filled with water up to the top, for half a day and in the shade, prior to putting them into a vase.
Add sugar to keep the flowers fresh longer and to help them open faster (from 1/4 to 1/2 cup dissolved in 10L water); also breaking or removing thorns from the roses will extend the life of the flowers.
Add 10 drops of bleach to stop bacteria from breeding.
Once you put the flowers in the vase, change the water daily, or top it up to prevent bacteria building up in the water.
You may also like to ask your florist for a commercial form of conditioner – called Chrysal – that will help with keeping the roses looking fresh for a longer time.
Watch our tutorial videos on how to make beautiful bouquets and floral compositions with your cut roses.

Deadhead to ensure more flowers

By now your rose garden may have experienced some very hot weather and it’s a timely reminder to give your roses some extra care.

Aside from watering and mulching heavily, the roses may benefit from a light summer prune.

By removing old blooms, it eliminates the energy being channeled into producing a rosehip and instead encourages new roses to bloom.

There’s no hard and fast rule for deadheading – it’s just a matter of cutting back any blooms or rosehips about 15 or 20cm down the stem (depending on the size of the plant) and shaping the rose back to a nice balanced plant.
Remove crispy leaves and dried twigs from the plant and apply some fertiliser, watering well and regularly to ensure the root ball is kept moist.
Reapplying fresh mulch will also ensure the moisture levels are maintained. In six to eight weeks, your roses should come back into flower.

Watch Brian's tips on deadheading in the video below.

Our Cut Flowers Collection

Meet our Team - Olivia

She's our youngest team member, and not only for her age - 21 just celebrated! - but because she's also the last one to have joined our team, one year ago.

Olivia Balshaw is the kind voice answering your phone calls, and the person on the other side of your computer, attending your emails, receiving your orders and resolving your problems.

She's got the sense of humor we often need in the office, and thanks to her age, she's very comfortable with websites, social media and Tik Tok... making Kelly and Benedetta's work much easier!

After one year working next to Kelly, Olivia has become very independent and is now in charge of online sales and our lovely retail customers.

Olivia told us she loves her job - and we believe her! - and she loves roses too, which is very handy. Actually, she enjoys roses so much, that she cannot decide which ones are her favourites as every day she changes her mind. Too many beauties out there!

When you call us next time, try to ask her: "Olivia, what's your favourite rose today?"...