Can you see the angle of the stem just below the bud on this rose? (It's actually to the upper left of the blossom.) This stem was the first to droop (on Friday), and the first that I repaired. (In a later photo, you can see this rose, repaired with a pearl-headed pin.)
Grocery store roses can be a real bargain, compared to those from the florist. However, I've had an issue with some grocery store roses. I sometimes get a batch whose buds begin to droop about a day after receiving or buying them.
This latest batch, bought from a grocery store on Valentine's Day, began to develop a couple of droopers on Friday, despite trimming the ends, keeping them in adequate water, and using the floral preservative. My solution for this batch came from a dozen florist's roses that I received once. Those roses had a short length of wire in each stem below the bud. So, for this past week’s roses that were drooping just below the bud, I thought I would substitute a straight pin for the florist wire in the stems.
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| a different stem beginning to droop |
About a half-inch below the place on the stem where the rose was drooping, I pushed an ordinary straight pin up through the stem (toward the blossom), being careful to keep the pin inside the stem and not poking through the other side.
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| if you look closely, you can see the pin head on the right side of the stem, an inch below the blossom |
Above, I’ve used a dark blue pin. But in the photo below, the large pearl-headed pin is more visible. (This rose had the greatest degree of drooping, by the way, and was the first rose that I salvaged with a pin.)
Below are the roses on Friday, after I’d “fixed” the ones whose buds were flopping at the top of the stem.
I repaired 5 of the stems between Friday and Saturday.
Here they are this morning (Tuesday). You can see the pearl-headed pin in a rose at the front of the bunch. The rose has maintained the integrity of its appearance, as have the others in the bunch.
And here’s a shot of the dozen from above so that you can see that the repaired rose (the furtherest to the left) is opening similarly to several of the other roses.
Obviously, floral wire would be easier to conceal, as there would be no head protruding from the stem. However, I am fine with the small, dark blue and green heads of the smaller pins, as they are barely noticeable and readily available to me. I'll leave the pins in until I take my bouquet apart, then return them to my sewing supplies.
It's too early to tell if the bouquet will continue to look uniformly good. So far, though, it looks like this little “fix” has salvaged my Valentine's roses.
