Lessons

Lesson Info

Processing Flowers

So I chose these air show because you could definitely see all the leaves on here. So you probably have heard the term processing flowers when I started former ally was really intimidated by that someone what practice processing flowers. I mean, I mean, it sounded so like there's, like some kind of chemical I need, like, you know, the goggles or something. You know something to d'oh, it's? Not really. Just a fancy name to say you're going to strip the greenery off of all the flowers. So any foliage, any greenery below the water line here going to want to take off? Because what happens is greenery. This isn't water will grow bacteria, which will cause the flowers to expire much earlier. So any greenery below the water line you want to ensure is off the flowers. Keep them alive longer. So this is a pen kishan, pro dea right here, and it has very lots of very big leaves. This could easily take over. Hold ok too, because it's so so dense. So we're going to take off. I like to leave a few a...

t the top. I just like the look of it again. It makes a really wild and great in your smith strip off. Any of that in a fall below the water line now this one we're going to do something you know we're doing ok which is a little different but if you're going to put it in a vase and say it's a really short center produce you know ensure at least this much is off of it so it's not going to grow bacteria and you may want to wear gloves I have like callouses for days on my hands I don't need to anymore so I just rip him right off if you're using roses you definitely won't want to do this this way you're going to want with roses I think they're all stripped right now but I'll show you and well this one actually is in this is great so delicate wrote that this is david austin roses that very expensive rose so it you know makes me buggy if I see people handling them really roughly because each one of these air several dollars basically I call it it's a mocha e mocha what it cost him so usually with ones like this I'll just use my fingers or you could use clippers tio which we have right here so you'll see there's I don't if you can see from there there awesome thorns here this one's really nice roast some roses air not nice and they have about one hundred thorns all over them so be very careful and you're just going to cut right parallel to the stem the thorns off like that and usually leave the top one because it's really pretty so everyone is a little different but you're gonna make sure all of the foliage is off be careful a lot of things are really prickly raspberries will kill you basically and that's what you do that's processing so the other thing is you're going to cut every time we have a little my little mantra early on especially was if the flower was out of water for ten seconds or more it needs a front fresh nip that's an easy way to think about it because once air hits you're not follicles what they called you know, maybe follicles maybe whatever little things are in the bottom of stems here it's going to cause them to to close up and you want the flower to get as much water as possible cut it at a forty five degree angle that's not only so it has more surface area to drink the water but it's also if you're putting it in a vase, you don't want it to hit flush with the bottom because it's not gonna be able to get any water that way either that's little tip most people don't know you definitely want make sure it's at a forty five degree angle clean cut right back in water less than ten seconds you can count on dh that's it there now some tips you want talk about tips for keeping your flowers fresh longer so definitely ok everybody's heard this it's really annoying I know to change the latter daily, right? You've earned that change a lot of it I didn't I don't do it all the time either, but it really is the number one thing to keep your flowers fresh longer we'll hear sometimes from like weekly accounts and the like flowers only lasted three days what is going on? And then we'll go and look at him like, oh, that shouldn't happen what's going on, you know, we're thinking maybe it was really hot in the office because that also something we'll get to but and we go there and the water it looks like sludge and you know, I don't tell them this, but I want tio say like, would you want to drink that? I mean, I wouldn't want to see the flowers don't want to either, so clean fresh water is the number one thing you can do. A lot of people asked about food, flower food, you can use food, it they've done a lot to test you confined test that say that it does help you confined, tested says it doesn't help when I first started and was doing like six orders a day and I plenty of time I would make my own flower food using lemon juice and bleach and what else had sugar sugar yeah so you know there's lots of little packs for that people say aspirin or sprite or all those things also knees yeah yeah water is the best thing yeah but I don't want to waste my back on that e o so yeah yeah but I have heard that to maybe it's really cheap but so we don't use any far food everything we buy goes out very quickly so we don't we don't need to we're not story in flowers for a long period of time if you clean your water out every day you don't need to use it I say if you're not going to then it might might behoove you to use um that was a good work because you two you some flower food in it so um but we don't use any of farm girl so other tips at a lot of people florist don't even know this one I'm shocked by it if you take out the stems that are expiring which means dying as they turn so it depends on the flower but they'll turn droopy or they'll get really brown on the outside that's how you know that they're dying take them out quickly don't leave them in there for a couple days that will prevent bacteria from that flower spreading to the other ones which kills the whole okay so just by doing that little thing you can keep at least two or three days longer heat flowers do not like heat everybody thinks they're out in the sunshine and they probably love being in the sunshine they don't don't put them in direct sunlight they will fry just like our skin they're very sensitive on dh they like colder places some flowers air really tricky they actually closed back up to have a many over there we have black ones so those actually and nominees will close up at night and open back up during the day so some people will think what happened to my nominee is it's you know it's not it'll make up two lips will continue to grow after they're cut so if you could've ok from us we always use about twelve different varieties and our brok is it's really funny people sent us pictures being lasted like two weeks and they'll send us a picture and it's like all two lips that are like you know eight inches twelve inches taller than the rest of the pain or a leg I hope they like it that way you know so just keeping your two lives you can just cut an inch off every couple of days from your tulips and I'll keep it to keep the design what you wanted to be um anyway having questions yeah checks you mentioned that some flowers will close back up again so I'm a photographer, and sometimes this happens with like the bride's bouquet on the wedding day and is there away or some kind of tips that you might have tio have them open without putting them in direct sunlight or young things like that very question to get flowers to open back up or to open up at all, put them in hot water for warm water don't don't scorch but really warm water, and you can do it over and over, and so when it cools and put another batch of hot water into it, so if you do that for about an hour, most will open up roses. I mean, they're slower than some others, but enemies will open two lips will start to open direct sunlight does help with that, too. So if europe in like scorching napa, taking them out of the shade and put him in the sun will get them to open right back up for you as well. But warm water is always a good, good trick way typically use all bud form of flowers because we want the recipients that are getting our flowers to get the most life out of them that they can, so when you receive one of her okay, sometimes people would be like but it has all this color on your site but then I get them and they don't wait three days and then they will but then they'll get a week out of them instead of three days if we were putting them in already open that way but warm water and jackson like to get them to open I see lots of things online about putting arrangements in four o foam thoughts on floral phone like how do you change water if there's foam in there it's almost like I stay just get you to ask me oh perfect, okay, so we've I've actually never used laurel film in my life ever ran and has she in classes that she's taking stuff they've they've used foam I don't like it at all it is really bad it's like on some of some with list that as one of the top ten worst things for the environment of anything that's crazy I mean it's there's all kinds of chemicals and it cancer causing agents it's really bad it six states are going to ban it. I've heard six states are going to be in a pretty soon it's so bad um, so I suggest not using for home you can't if you're using floral thank you can't re hydrate it you can you know, get it you've had more water to it but I'm gonna give you options for not using floral foam here. Okay, so we up until recently well, now even we use chicken wire instead it's really easy we can so he had a different time how to do that? We don't have any here but really just bend it to fit whatever vessel that you're using you can tape it in place tio if it's a very shallow a lot of like earns or really and footed pedestals or really popular right now so you can tape it in place on the edges you won't even see it on and then usually we make like a ball of the chicken wire because then has two layers which will have more security for it. So chicken wire people use curly willow they also tape grids you've seen the chicken was taped yeah, if you could do great on top but find a way until men like now I have something new to tell you but, um the chicken wire has been our favorite and it's really easy to work with, but now assume there's going to be a alternative to floral film that's one hundred percent biodegradable you could actually eat it it's called floral soil um it's not on the market yet it will be soon it's amazing I wouldn't eat it only the founder, the creator, said. The only men have actually eaten it, so I don't think you don't want to either, but it made out of coconut husk in some other proprietary things that she doesn't give out to everybody to let them know, but it looks like dirt, like a cube of dirt comes in the same shapes s as floral foam or will so you can use it for everything on dh you can actually reuse it, and you can plant stuff in it later on and have, like a garden grow in it later if you want in the next couple of months it should be out on the market and it's called floral soil solutions, and we're so we just used a sample that we just got samples from her and we loved it. It was amazing were able to use less flowers, that's why a lot of people use the phone, they can do different shapes, they could do white or vessels without having to use hundreds of flowers in it, so this will be able to do the same things while not killing the earth.