I have the best luck using Jeanne's recipe (check the cutting garden forum) --1 gal of water --2Tbsp white sugar --2 Tbsp white venegar adn 1/2 tsp bleach. It is really better than any preservative that is on the market.

You are stripping excess leaves? And what are you growing --somethings do better than other things.

Cathy

thanks. right now I'm using some Amaranths, Teasels, Bissetti Bamboo, Dogwood branches, assorted Grasses as they come into bloom.

Later I plan on using the Joe Pyes, Sambucus branches, Viburnum & Hollies.

Theres a lot more to it than just sticking the cuts in a bucket of water.
Be sure the stems are not dirty and if they are rinse them in some running water to get dirt off.
The containers must be really clean, not just really clean but sterile. You do this by washing them thoroughly with hot water and dish soap and a 15% solution (at least) of household bleach. Do this each time before using. Caution your customers to do the same with their containers.
Stip off all foliage that will be below the water level.
Use a product like Floralife and mix into your water exactly as recommended on label. Recommend that your customers do likewise.
Get cuts cooled off as quickly as possible. You need to do some research on what the individual plants like and don't like re: temperature ie. zinnias don't like as much cold as many others. Do research in publications and online at many various sites.
If you want to be successful at this you have to learn quite a bit.

Bob

thanks. could anyone suggest online sites or publications???

The Flower Farmer is one of the best books out there --you can order it at www.growingformarket.com --also an excellent source.

Bob made an excellent point --your buckets and vases should be as clean as your teacups.

For information on specific flowers, Specialty Cut Flowers, Second Edition, by Armitage and Laushman, is indispensable. It is mostly oriented towards large greenhouse growers but still has plenty of useful information for the little guys like me. Much of that information isn't findable elsewhere. It's a reference book for flowers, not a how-to book like The Flower Farmer. Like Clink, I recommend The Flower Farmer first.

If you pick buckets and buckets of flowers like I do, you might find it cheaper to make the home-made preservative Clink gave the recipe for, than to use packaged types. Yes, you can buy preservative in large, ready-to-mix amounts, which is more convenient but more expensive also. I give my customers little packets of Floralife with their flowers, since I can't package the home-made mix conveniently.

Jeanne

i use the vinegar, sugar and water recipe. however, i don't use bleach...i drop in a crushed aspirin. it works amazingly well! give various approaches a try and see what works for you.

also, visit the columns section on www.newfarm.org. there is a lady there who has been doing cut flowers for a long time and she has some good ideas.

I just purchased the specialty cut flower book from Amazon.com. If anyone is interested in this book, they can get it for 10% off if they buy within a week. Please send me your e-mail address if you are interested and I will fill in the requested info at Amazon and they will contact you This is the info that came up on Amazon when I purchased.
"Share the Love! Send Your Friends a 10% Discount on items you just ordered.
If they buy any of them within one week, you'll also earn credit toward future purchases."
It also applies for free shipping. A win-win situation
Patti

To add to all of the above information:

It helps to understand what causes flowers/stems/woodies to wilt. The primary cause is that they can't take up water and/or sugar. That is because they have gotten air or bacteria in their stems, blocking the uptake of water. Bruised or otherwise damaged stems can't take up water either. Note that Bob's advice about cleanliness is right on, because if you don't follow it, bacterial will multiply in the water and block the stems. Many flowers/foliage also require some sugar to nourish them, since their leaves are mostly gone and/or they aren't in direct sun any more, so they can't get their sugar the usual way, from photosynthesis. Most flowers and many woodies prefer water that is slightly acidic, I don't know why, but it's true. So you sugar, acid, clean containers, and something to prevent bacterial growth. In my case, I use plain cheapo white sugar, plain cheapo white vinegar, and bleach, in the proportions Clink gave above. Floralife and the other packaged preservatives have similar products in them to make the right sugar/acid/biocide blend.

Re-cut stems an instant before putting them into the preservative water. If you gather them all and then take them into the house before putting them in water, they have air in their stems and won't take up water. You can still do that, but re-cut in the house a split-second before putting in water. For me, it's more convenient to take my buckets out to the field. I gather as many as I can re-cut quickly at once, then re-cut the ends a split second before popping them into the buckets. If I gather too many to re-cut quickly, I'll divide them into smaller groups to re-cut and plop into water.

With woodies (i.e. shrubs, larger perennials, anything with a "woody" stem, you need to open the stem up to water better. Their circulation is not as fast as soft new stems and needs more help. First, you need to cut the stem on a sharp angle, to expose as much as possible to water (then immediately plunk it into preservative water). For types that are REALLY fast to wilt, I'll make that cut underwater, using a really sharp clipper to avoid bruising the stems. I ALWAYS do that with roses.

There are a couple of different approaches for the next step; both make a huge difference. Some folks slit the stem at the bottom, going up about half an inch, which divides the cut end of the stem into two sections. Some make another slit perpendicular to that one, dividing the stem into four sections. Some "smash" the end of the stem with a hammer or mallet. You get better results that way if you don't really smash it, just tap it gently to get it to open up a little. A really smashed stem is too bruised to take up anything! I tap mine with a mallet that's coated with a soft plastic. That seems to do less damage and works pretty well. I'm very uncoordinated and can't do the slit thing without cutting myself in the process. Of course, instantly plunge into preservative water after tapping or slitting. I swish the tapped ends in the water a bit to try to get rid of air bubbles. I don't try to tap more than two or three at a time so they don't spend much time out of the water. If I did the slit thing, I'd only work with one stem at a time. Those slit or tapped surfaces are being exposed to air and are more likely to fail the longer they are out of water.

It's easiest and fastest to do it all if you have a work surface you can have a small bucket on for the re-cutting underwater, either slit or tap (have a cutting board for tapping on) right there, and swish into new preservative and leave them there.

This sounds complicated but isn't hard to do and you can get very fast at it. In all, here's how it goes:

Re-cut at an angle, underwater, one or two stems at a time.

Take those one or two stems, tap with a mallet and promptly swish in fresh preservative water, then leave them there.

Repeat as needed.

That's it!

Oh, and in general, at least three hours in a cool place (I use my house, air-conditioned to 65 on harvest day) in preservative will condition most flowers somewhat. Overnight is much better, especially for woodies.

nettle, the only function of the aspirin is to acidify the water (aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid), which you are already doing to a much larger extent with the vinegar. The aspirin has no biocidal properties (it doesn't kill germs) the way bleach does. You could experiment with skipping the aspirin in some batches while using the aspirin in identical batches, with identical flowers cut at the same time (everything else has to be the same for the results to be valid). I bet you won't see any difference. Aspirin is a popular way to make just a vaseful of preservative water for home use, with a little sugar and a drop of bleach (the final result isn't going to be accurate, but may be better than plain water). A splash of 7-Up with an drop of bleach supposedly does the job well also, but I've never tried it. By the way, plain aspirin disintegrates pretty fast in water, so you don't really need to crush it. Enteric-coated aspirin doesn't, but I wouldn't use that anyway because I'm unsure of what's in the coating and whether it might clog stems.

Jeanne