3 Tips for Fresh Daffodil Blooms
Spring is coming! Can you feel it in the air? After the cold and dark winter the first blooms of spring are a welcome sight. Daffodils are among the first to bloom, and in fact are considered symbolic of rebirth and new beginnings - how perfect!
I love daffodils in the landscape, but a whole bouquet of daffodils?? Heaven. But there’s a few things to know first to get the most vase life from your daffodils - and any other flowers you have in the vase with them.
#1. Pick - don’t cut! - daffodil flowers
The stem on the left has been picked as far down as possible and is nearly complete solid, while the stem to the right (laying on top) was cut - you can see more of the hollow tube on the right. This will mean more leaking mucilage and less vase life - for your daffodil and its neighbors.
Have you cut daffodil flowers before? If you have I’m sure you’ve seen their hollow, tube-like stems, with liquid oozing from the cut. This liquid is actually called ‘mucilage’ and contains calcium oxalate crystals (in addition to a toxic alkaloid called narciclasine) and is part of what daffodils use to protect themselves from would-be nibblers. For people it can cause skin irritation, a burning feeling, and rash - even cracked skin and blisters.
The best way to protect yourself from this poisonous sap? Don’t cut the stem! Instead, pick the flower by pinching the stem between your thumb and forefinger and snap it off as close to the ground as you can. When you harvest your flowers this way you’ll see that the base of the stem is much more solid, with far less (if any!) of the sap. One key thing to keep in mind though, is that by using this technique you won’t be able to choose the length of your stem - Mother Nature did this for you.
Now if you’re reading this just a bit too late and you’ve already cut your flowers (hey, I don’t blame you! Those blooms are gorgeous!) then see tip # 3 below!
#2. Pick when the neck is crooked (before the bloom opens)
Daffodils have a notoriously short vase-life. The best way to extend it? Pick your daffodils in the crooked neck stage. Right before daffodils open fully their neck bends over, at just about a ninety degree angle. You can see the blooms just waiting to burst forth! It might seem early, but the blooms will continue to open in your arrangement over the next several days, extending their life - and your enjoyment of them!
These stems are at the perfect stage, and began to open within just a few hours in the vase. But unlike the other flowers picked when they were already fully open, these will continue in the vase for many more days. And who doesn’t want that??
#3. Wait to mix daffodils with your other flowers
Remember that toxic sap (mucilage) we talked about? It turns out that besides being toxic for your skin it’s also toxic to other flowers in the vase with daffodils, clogging their stems and leading them to wilt quickly. Tulips are known to be especially sensitive to this (which is a shame since these beauties bloom around the same time!).
Besides picking your flowers instead of cutting (tip #1 above), holding your flowers separately for a few hours is also beneficial (most sources recommend anywhere from 3-24 hours - I’d stick to the longer side to be safe if you can!). The areas of the stem that leak sap heal over time, so by holding your daffodils in separate water you give them time to heal the cut wound (like forming a scab) and stop sharing their poison with the other flowers around them. But while many flowers benefit with subsequent cuts (to be sure they will continue to take up water) you do NOT want to do this with daffodils - cutting the stem again will create a fresh wound and more sap leaking! So hold them in water separately for several hours, let them heal and stop oozing, then mix with other blooms.
I absolutely LOVE daffodils, and with these tips above I get to enjoy them inside in my bouquets for a lot longer. I hope they’ll help you, too!
