Roses, wonderful cut flowers for bouquets

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Roses are stunning garden flowers that you can also pick to enjoy their beauty and fragrance indoors.They make for beautiful bouquets and elegantly sit in their vase, naturally scenting the whole space. However, the queen of flowers requires some good practices once cut, to enjoy her beauty over time. Here’s the rundown on how to make the most of your cut rose flower.

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Best rose varieties for bouquets

There are many bush rose varieties whose flowers can be picked. Some lend themselves better to this use, including:

• ‘Royal William’ rose has individual, velvety red and emblematic petals, emitting a strong fragrance;
• ‘Just Joey’ whose buds unfold into ideal apricot flowers in a terracotta vase;
• ‘Elina’ rose, a hybrid for cutting with creamy yellow flowers on long single stems;
• ‘Julia’s Rose’ with a surprising coral color, perfect for floral decoration;
• ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ with dark pink flowers that fill the room with their old rose scent;
• ‘Golden Celebration’ and ‘Golden Fashion‘ both have rich yellow flowers that particularly last well in water;
• Lastly, ‘Rambling Rector’, an old climbing rose whose flowers last a long time once cut.

Note: Tea hybrids, otherwise known as large-flowered roses, generally last longer than old varieties.

How to pick a rose?

1. Pick preferably in the morning during dry weather to help the wound dry faster. Ideally, you should have watered your rosebush the night before.
2. Don’t forget to wear gloves, as sharp rose thorns can transmit tetanus.
3. Use a well-sharpened and previously disinfected secateur to cut your roses.
4. Cut stems at an angle of about 45°, and make sure to keep them a good length.

Note: Roses that last the longest are those cut right when flower petals have just started to unfurl.

Keeping a cut rose in a bouquet

Once cut, the rose needs suitable exposure and plenty of hydration. To start with, avoid placing the vase near a window that gets too much sun. Direct light is too harsh for cut flowers. Indeed, full sunlight damages the colors of the cut rose, and degrades its petals. Similarly, avoid placing the vase near a heat source, which is just as devastating.

Hydration is another key point to keep your cut roses for a long time. They need clean and abundant water. So, make sure the vase is clean and fill it generously. The water should reach, at least, halfway up the stems of your roses.

Remember to change the vase’s water regularly. Ideally, renew it every day. This way, wilted flowers and leaves won’t be able to alter the water. Otherwise, decaying plant waste risks rotting the bouquet.

Also, it’s a good idea to regularly trim the stem of your cut roses, and remove the lowest leaves. In this way, the flower is better oxygenated and better hydrated.

Cut rose as a dried flower

Despite our best efforts, cut roses always end up wilting. However, to indefinitely enjoy your bouquets, it’s possible to dry them. The process is straightforward and very enjoyable:

1. Pick some of your finest roses and cut them.
2. Store them in a cool, dry, and well-ventilated space.
3. Wait several weeks until the flowers are completely dehydrated.
4. Optional: spray them with lacquer.

All that’s left is to store your dried rose and create your decoration.