8. place cut stems in water buckets
Each five gallon bucket can generally hold 2 - 3 bunches of flowers. Just be sure not to overcrowd the flowers.
Treat your fresh greenery with the same care as your flowers. Cut them and dip in Quick Dip before placing in a bucket of water that HAS NOT BEEN TREATED WITH CUT FLOWER FOOD. This is the basic difference. Some greens can turn yellow if they absorb too much flower food, so leave the resting buckets with just clean, clear water. (However, the cleaning and rinsing buckets with Bleach water is still the same).
9. Rest unopened blooms near light
Don't judge your roses to be bad if the outer petals are bruised or marked. This are referred to as "guard petals" and are deliberately left on to protect the inner rose petals.
Leave these petals in place until you are ready to design the flowers. Then you can peel them down to the unblemished portion of the rose.
As you can see, dry packed flowers tend to look crumpled and wilted.
You may need to set your flowers to rest near an open light if they need to open a bit. (I generally recommend keeping roses and fragile flowers away from the light. They generally open quickly anyway.) Stay away from too much heat, however. It should be a gentle warmth, as in an early morning sunlight.
After a short time, you can see the blooms respond to the warmth and open up beautifully.
Other tightly budded flowers, such as the gladiolus shown here, will respond to the warmth and light as well.
A short time later the blooms open and present a fully opened flower.
10. Store the flower in a cool dark room
Ideally you should keep tender flowers (roses, freesia, gerberas) refrigerated if possible.
Be sure to mist well with a sealant since refrigerators and air conditioning tends to draw moisture out of the air (and out of the flower petals!). All the roses and freesia needed for the wedding flowers shown in this page fit on one of my fridge's shelves.
Dial the normal kitchen refrigerator up to a warmer setting. Regular refrigerators tend to be colder towards the back and can actually freeze your flowers.
