Red rose | Flowers | Rose | Rose Flower | Bouquet | Floral

Roses are beautiful, fragrant flowers that come in a variety of colors and sizes. Given the right care, roses can stay fresh for some days after being cut. To keep your roses from wilting, be sure to change their water daily, use a very clean vase and keep them in a cool spot. See Step 1 to learn more about how to keep roses fresh.

Cut your own roses early in the morning. If you're cutting roses from your own rosebush to display indoors, cut them in the morning, before it gets hot outside. Cutting them while it is still cool will keep Roses from wilting just after cutting. Immediately after cutting the roses, put the stems in a clean bucket of fresh water.

•        The night before cutting your roses, water the rosebush. Well-hydrated roses will stay fresher long time than roses cut from a bush that has not been recently watered.

•        Cut the stems at a 45 degree angle using a clean pair of hand pruners.

Buy cut roses from a florist you trust. If you're not cutting your own roses, try to buy them from a expertise florist, preferably one with whom you have a relationship. That way you'll be able to get your hands on roses which were recently cut, rather than roses that may have been sitting there for a week.

•        Ask the florist which flowers arrived that very morning, and try to select the very freshest roses possible.

•        Choose roses from the refrigeration unit, since roses that are kept cool last longer than those that have been sitting out at room temperature.

Squeeze the roses where the petals meet the stem. This is a sure way to tell whether roses are still fresh. When you are checking roses before making your purchase, gently squeeze them at their base, at the petals come together at the stem. If it feels loose and squishy, the roses are old, and you should avoid them. If it feels the roses are fresh. 

Inspect the roses for bruised or broken petals. Look for roses with well-formed, colorful petals. Examine the tips of the petals to make sure they aren't bruised or brown. When you bring the roses home, remove a few outer petals that have been damaged, but there's not much you can do to improve damaged tips on the inner petals. Intact petals are more attractive and will stay fresh longer than bruised ones.

Keep them in water on the way home. If the roses are out of water even for a few minutes and they won't stay fresh as long. When you go to the flower shop, you might want to bring along a bucket filled with a few inches of water so you'll have a place to keep the roses watered when you take them home. If you don't have a bucket, ask the florist to package them with water.