How to keep sunflowers alive. Growing sunflowers at home give you access to beautiful blooms that you can use to decorate your home.
You can either cut them to display or plant them in the ground and enjoy a bountiful harvest later on, but how you cut them and how you care for them affects how long they last once they are cut from the main stem.
It’s important not to wait too long before cutting the stems so that most of their life force does not get sucked up by other plants nearby.
How to keep sunflowers alive
Make sure to water your sunflowers well several hours before you plan to pick. They Tall flowers need a lot of water and will wither quickly if not given enough water.
We recommend picking in the early morning before the sun becomes too strong. Cut the stem at an angle and place them in water immediately after picking. Make sure to change their water every day as they require loads of it.
After picking, water thoroughly
Sunflowers can wither very quickly if the ground they are planted in dries out. When you need to take some sunflowers for a gift, make sure you water them well approximately 24 hours before taking them or even the night before if possible.
By watering the plant prior to harvesting it, the water will soak into the sunflower’s roots so that taking it can be easier, and reward you with a fresher plant.
Pick up early in the morning
It’s obvious that sunflowers like the sun, but they tend to dry out quickly during the day when the sun beats down on them. A bunch of wilted, petal-losing sunflowers will result from picking them at this time of year.
If you’re going to go picking flowers the first thing in the morning is best because they had the whole night to rejuvenate their water supply and since it’s still cool at that time of day, they won’t wilt upon picking.
Cut stems at an angle
I myself have heard this tip once again that if you angle the stems of your sunflower it will absorb more water faster in theory.
Not only that, but the angled stems won’t be able to rest along the vase’s bottom and be impaired from soaking up more water because of this.
This takes me back to why I do it in the first place When I have some sunflowers in a vase, I like for it to look complete and full of life.
Put stems in water after picking
The sunflower is huge and long-stemmed with huge flowers. One way to keep them strong is by putting them in water as soon as possible after you’ve picked one because if you put it into water immediately the shock of being plucked will cause less damage to them.
I fill a 5-gallon bucket with about 4 inches of water and walk around holding that bucket with one hand while I pick them.
It makes my job quite a bit easier because sunflowers aren’t that light even when they haven’t bloomed yet so it can get quite troublesome without a good tool at your disposal.
Replace the water every day
I have tried a plethora of over-the-counter and homemade flower preservers, and frankly, none has ever worked as well as simply changing the water in the vase every day.
The idea here is to keep the bacteria levels low to slow down the decomposition of the sunflowers. And when I did try flower preservers and just topped off with water as the sunflowers needed, it was pretty stinky when it was time to part company with them.
When refilling your sunflowers each day you’ll be keeping their leafy counterparts healthy which means they will last longer without any scent whatsoever.
This method works great if you’re creating arrangements meant for outdoor use because they need fresh water every day.
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