How to care for cut tulips so they last longer

Cut tulips last longest when the stems are freshly cut, the water is cool and shallow, and the vase stands away from radiators and direct sun. Looked after this way, they usually stay fresh for about a week. Tulips also have a character of their own: in the vase they keep growing, turn towards the light and change the shape of the bouquet every day. Here is why, and what to do about it.

Why tulips keep growing and bend in the vase

Tulips are one of the few cut flowers that keep growing in water. Over a few days a stem can gain several centimetres, so a bunch that looked neat on the first day starts to sprawl. Tulips also react strongly to light: the heads turn towards the window or a lamp, and the stems curve to follow. In a warm, bright room the flowers open wide by day and close a little again in the cooler evening.

This is not a sign of poor quality, just how tulips behave, and many people like it because the bouquet looks alive. To keep them straighter:

• turn the vase a little every day so a different side of the bunch faces the light;
• use a tall vase with straight sides that supports the stems almost up to the heads;
• avoid standing the vase right next to a window where the light comes from one side only;
• if the stems have grown too long, trim them and rearrange the bunch.

How to choose fresh tulips

• Buds. Closed or just starting to open, with the colour clearly showing. These last longest at home. Completely green buds sometimes never develop their full colour.
• Leaves. Green and crisp, not yellowing or limp.
• Stems. Firm and straight, with a pale cut end, not brown or slimy.

Tulips do not like the cold. In winter or early spring, carry them home well wrapped: even a few minutes of frost can damage the flowers.

Putting tulips in water

1. Wash the vase with a drop of washing-up liquid and rinse it well. Bacteria left over from earlier flowers shorten the life of any bouquet.
2. Add cool water, but do not fill the vase. Tulips only need enough to cover the lower part of the stems, roughly a third of the way up. Their stems are soft and juicy, and the part that sits deep in water softens and rots sooner.
3. Remove any leaves that would sit below the waterline.
4. With a sharp knife, cut 1–2 cm off each stem at an angle. If the bottom of the stem is white, cut that part off too: it takes up water less well than the green part.
5. Put the tulips in water straight away. If a sachet of flower food came with the bouquet, dissolve it as the packet says. There are also flower foods made for bulb flowers such as tulips and daffodils.

Florists often wrap a bunch of tulips firmly in paper and stand it in cool water for an hour or two before arranging. The stems drink and firm up straight. You can do the same at home.

Water and position in the days after

Although the water is shallow, tulips drink a lot, especially on the first day. So:

• check the water daily and top it up with cool water when needed;
• replace the water completely every 1–2 days, trimming about another centimetre off the stems each time;
• keep the vase away from radiators, direct sun and the fruit bowl: warmth makes tulips grow and open faster, and ripening fruit gives off ethylene, which speeds up ageing;
• if you can, move the vase somewhere cooler overnight.

In Lithuania flats are still heated in March, so keeping tulips away from the radiator matters.

Tulips and daffodils in one vase

Daffodils and tulips arrive together in spring, so it is tempting to mix them. Freshly cut daffodil stems, however, release a slimy sap that clogs the stems of other flowers. Tulips are particularly sensitive to it and fade sooner in a shared vase.

If you want a mixed bunch:

1. Stand freshly cut daffodils in a separate container for at least a few hours, ideally overnight.
2. Pour that water away and move the daffodils in with the tulips.
3. Do not cut the daffodil stems again: every new cut releases fresh sap.

The simplest solution is two separate vases.

Straightening drooping tulips

If tulips hang their heads while the petals still look fresh, they are usually short of water, or the stems spent some time out of it. This can almost always be fixed.

1. Take the tulips out of the vase and gather them into one bunch.
2. Wrap them firmly in paper, newspaper or kraft paper, from the bottom of the stems right up to the heads, so the paper holds the stems straight.
3. Cut about a centimetre off the stems with a sharp knife.
4. Stand the wrapped bunch in cool water somewhere cool for a few hours or overnight.
5. Unwrap them and put them back in a clean vase with fresh water.

If after several days they droop again, wide open and dropping petals, they have simply reached the end of their life.

When tulips are in season in Lithuania

Tulips are spring flowers. Greenhouse tulips appear in flower shops already in winter, and they are most plentiful from February to May. Demand peaks twice: around 8 March, International Women's Day, and around Mother's Day, which in Lithuania falls on the first Sunday of May. In Lithuanian gardens tulips flower in late April and May, depending on the variety and how warm the spring is.

In season the choice is wide: classic cup-shaped tulips, double tulips that look a little like peonies, fringed tulips and parrot tulips with wavy, often streaked petals. In summer and autumn you will see far fewer tulips for sale.

How long tulips last

Well cared-for cut tulips usually last 5–7 days. Bought in bud and kept cool, they sometimes last longer. Next to a radiator they open fully within a day or two and fade after only a few days.

Tulips in Kaunas

Gitanos gėlės is a flower stand inside the Šilas store at A. Baranausko g. 26, Kaunas, open every day 8:00–23:00. In spring, especially before 8 March and Mother's Day, it is worth pre-ordering a tulip bouquet by SMS on +370 656 38880 or on gitanosgeles.lt.