Learned a hard lesson about flower food ratios last week

I was prepping a big order for a wedding in Portland and figured I'd save time by eyeballing the flower food packets. Big mistake. By the next morning half the hydrangeas were totally wilted and the roses looked sad. Turns out I used way too much concentrated food and it burned the stems. Lost about $200 worth of stock and had to run to the wholesaler at 6am to replace everything. Now I measure every single packet to the exact water ratio. Anyone else ever mess up a batch by getting lazy with the measurements?

3 comments

3 Comments

cora_west517d ago

I used triple the recommended food once on a batch of tulips for a spring event and they all bent over at weird angles within hours. The stems got all soft and mushy at the base. Ended up having to cut them super short and arrange them in low cylinders just to salvage something. Now I'm religious about measuring with a little plastic cup I keep in the bucket bin.

blair99017d ago

Man, have I been there. It's like the second you get complacent, the flowers just call you out on it. I did something similar with a mixed batch for a friend's birthday party - I had a fancy Dutch variety of tulips that I was so excited about, just dumped the whole packet in a bucket thinking "more is better." Woke up the next morning to stems that looked like overcooked spaghetti. Had to basically throw the whole batch out because they were too soft to even prop up in a vase. Now I'm super strict about marking the water level on my buckets with a sharpie line and measuring the food out with those little plastic shot glasses. It feels like a pain in the moment but it saves your wallet and your sanity.

garcia.wren17d ago

@blair990 nailed it. The sharpie line trick is genius. Too much food turns them into limp noodles every single time.