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Once you have selected and purchased the plant materials you require, it is essential that you care for them properly to gain maximum shelf life and obtain value for money. 

Most importantly, they need to be conditioned! Even applying best conditioning practice, your florals will not survive if their environmental conditions are not good!

The following top tips will help you to achieve the best possible environment in which to store your plant materials:

• Humidity - excessive humidity leads to botrytis and ethylene gas production. Avoid this by removing cellophane wrapping
• Draughts - excessive draughts can cause “burn” marks on leaves and flower tips. This can be identified by a brown discolouration
• Overcrowding - allow space between stems and between vases/buckets/containers. This will also help you to remove flowers from their vases without damage
• Light - light encourages flowers to develop more quickly, so useful when encouraging stubborn blooms to develop. You can hold back development by placing blooms in the dark. TIP: Keeping phototropic blooms in the dark will help to keep their stems straight and rigid until required
• Temperature - the optimum temperature for storage is 6 deg C Commercial cold storage is thermostatically controlled so the temperature is constant. Temperature fluctuation is detrimental to the flowers
• Flower Food - most flower foods contain food nutrients, bacteria and ethylene gas inhibitors and a P.H. balancer TIP: it is not recommended to use bleach, sugar or lemonade etc. as quantities are very difficult to judge and the results are not proven

Ensuring your blooms are healthy and strong will allow you to create the perfect expression of nature's beauty for your customers!