Fresh bouquets make our homes look bright and beautiful, but it can be a disappointment when these blooms start to wilt after just a few days. Store-provided flower food packets can help a little, but did you know that homemade flower food is far more effective?
The little packets of powder that come with store-bought bouquets are usually made up of a combination of sugar, citric acid, and bleach, but they generally don’t help much and the packets they come in are just another piece of single-use plastic that goes into the trash.
Mindbodygreen writer Emma Loewe conducted a series of tests with rumored at-home flower foods and narrowed it down to a few effective options. The winner was an unusual ingredient: orange soda.
Why orange soda?
Orange soda is high in citric acid, which helps flowers absorb water more quickly to avoid wilting. Just add a splash of orange soda to your flower water and you’ll see a big difference in how long they last.
Option two
Another top contender for natural flower food is over-the-counter aspirin. Adding half a crushed pill to your flower water lowers the Ph level of the water, making it easier for flowers to suck it up.
Now that you know how to make those fresh flowers last as long as possible, you can make your floral arrangements as sustainable as possible by buying your flowers from a local florist and asking for them to be wrapped in paper, not plastic.
