Flower care
Vase life by flower: a reference table
Realistic days in a vase for 15 common flowers, from carnations at 14 plus down to sweet pea at 4 to 5, each with the one care note that changes the number.
Checked on
Half the disappointment with cut flowers comes from measuring a short-lived flower against the wrong number. Sweet pea gives four or five days with faultless care. Carnations give a fortnight with almost none. Knowing which you have in front of you tells you whether a bunch underperformed or simply finished.
The figures below assume ordinary decent care: a clean vase, a slanted cut, no leaves below the waterline, fresh water every second day and a cool spot away from the fruit bowl. Flower food at the right dose moves most flowers to the top of their range rather than the bottom.
The table
| Flower | Vase life | The one thing that matters |
|---|---|---|
| Carnations | 14+ days | Cut between the nodes, not through the swollen joint, or the stem cannot take up water. |
| Orchids | 14+ days | Cut stems want warmth, not cold. Never put a vase of orchids on a cold windowsill. |
| Alstroemeria | 14 days | Strip the leaves hard. They yellow and rot long before the flowers are done. |
| Chrysanthemums | 14 days | Woody stems respond well to the hot water dip if a head droops early. |
| Lilies | 8-12 days | Pull the anthers off as each bloom opens. Pollen stains fabric permanently. |
| Roses | 7-10 days | Cut under water. Bent neck is an air lock, not age, and a paper wrap fixes it. |
| Gerberas | 7-10 days | Hollow stems bend and rot. Shallow water, about 5cm, changed daily. |
| Freesias | 7-10 days | Buy with only the first bloom open. The rest of the spike opens in the vase. |
| Sunflowers | 7-10 days | Heavy drinkers. Check the water level daily, not every second day. |
| Gypsophila | 7-10 days | The cloud dries in place, so it is worth keeping when the rest of the bunch goes. |
| Hydrangeas | 5-10 days | The head drinks through its surface. Submerge a wilted one for half an hour. |
| Tulips | 5-7 days | They keep growing and leaning. A tall narrow vase and cool water slow it. |
| Daffodils | 5-7 days | Their sap shortens other flowers. Stand them alone for an hour, then do not re-cut. |
| Peonies | 5-7 days | Buy them as soft marshmallow buds. A fully open peony has a day or two left. |
| Sweet pea | 4-5 days | Nothing extends them much. Pick or buy them often instead. |
Reading the table
A fortnight flower is doing something different. Carnations, orchids, alstroemeria and chrysanthemums are all built to hold. Carnations in particular have a reputation problem in Ireland that has nothing to do with how they perform: they are cheap, they were overused in the eighties, and they will outlast anything you put beside them. A mixed bunch that has been stripped back to its carnations and alstroemeria on day nine and re-cut into a smaller vase is often the best value part of the whole thing.
The 7 to 10 group is where care actually decides the outcome. Roses, gerberas, freesias, sunflowers and gypsophila will all give you seven days on neglect and ten on attention. That gap is worth the ten minutes. Roses are the ones people most often think they have killed, and a rose with a folded neck on day three is almost always fixable rather than finished.
The short group is short by design. Tulips, daffodils, peonies and sweet pea are all spring and early summer flowers with short natural lives, and no technique changes that much. Tulips are the clearest case: they carry on growing after cutting, lengthening by a few centimetres and arching over the rim of the vase. That is the flower behaving normally, not wilting.
Hydrangeas are the widest range on the list for a reason. A hydrangea cut young from a plant in full growth may only give five days. One cut late in the season, when the heads have started to feel papery, will run to ten and then dry in the vase without ever really dying. Buying them late in their season is the single change that moves the number.
What the table cannot tell you
None of these figures start when you buy the bunch. They start when the stem was cut, and an imported flower has typically spent several days in a cold chain, a wholesaler and a shop before you see it. Two identical bunches can be four days apart in real terms.
The checks worth making in the shop: is the water in the bucket clear, are the leaves at the base of the stems yellowing, have the outer petals been peeled off the roses to make them look fresher, and are the buds tight rather than fully open. Any of those tell you more about how long a bunch will last than the label does.
Flowers bought from an Irish grower usually come in at or above the top of these ranges, because the supply chain is short enough that they were cut days rather than weeks ago. It is the one real advantage of buying Irish-grown, and it is worth more than most of the care advice on this site.
For the routine that gets a bunch to the top of its range, see how to keep cut flowers fresh.
Questions people ask
Which cut flowers last the longest?
Why do my tulips only last five days?
Are supermarket flowers shorter lived than a florist's?
Do the figures in this table assume flower food?
Which flowers should not go in a mixed vase?
Read next
- Flower care: what actually extends vase lifeThe five things that add days to a bunch, ranked by how much each is worth, and why aspirin, lemonade and a copper coin in the vase do nothing useful.
- How to keep cut flowers freshThe full routine: a 2-3cm cut under running water, leaves stripped below the line, fresh water every second day, and the worst spots in an Irish house.
- Tulips: season in Ireland, meaning and vase careTulips keep growing after you cut them, bend towards the light and hate deep water. The Irish season, what the colours mean, and how to keep them upright.
- Roses: what each colour means, season and careRed says one thing and yellow says another. What each rose colour means, why the February ones were cut in Kenya, and how to stop the necks bending.