h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's 7:08pm and half an hour ago I brought Red roses (it is the 14th tomorrow after all)

My question is how do I keep them fresh untill tomorrow afternoon (about 20 hours)?

wrap fairly tightly in newspaper and plunge up to their necks in a bucket of water

ah, newspaper, thanks

Cut the bottom 2cm or so off the stems as well.

Once they are on display, piercing the bulge of the stem with a pin can prevent the heads drooping.

i was always told to crush the end of the stems before putting in water.

I think the main thing is to have a fresh surface for water uptake.

Hmm just had a look A704530 may help

Shorty+ did a biology project on keeping flowers fresh last year, but I don't think she's going to have time to get on here to explain her results in a timely manner, so I'll tell you what I remember.

She was working with carnations because they were an inexpensive flower and she needed about 5 or 6 dozen to have reliable results.

The water solutions she used were aspirin, sugar, vinegar, sugar and vinegar, cut flower food and plain water (the control). she trimmed about an inch (2.54 cm) off each stem daily and put them in fresh solution. The flowers were considered dead and removed from the experiment once they stopped shrinking.

The flowers that were given the sugar and vinegar solution (1 Tbsp each of sugar and vinegar in 1 qt water) opened up to the largest flower heads, but the weight of the flower heads caused the stems to break sometimes, so those flowers had to be removed from the experiment when they were at their peak as far as size was concerned. Wiring the stems might have prevented this. The sugar only, vinegar only, and cut flower food had medium results as far as the size of the flowers was concerned. However, as far as sheer longevity of bloom is concerned, the cut flower food had the best results. If the flower heads hadn't broken off on the vinegar and sugar combination solution, perhaps they would have lasted the longest. But knowing that for sure would have required doing the experiment all over again.

We used the vinegar and sugar solution for roses sometime later, and the flowers seemed to last a long time, but not any longer than they normally did using cut flower food.

with roses, split the bottom of the stem upwards - don't crush
but that's for when you arrange tomorrow

I've heard they stay fresh if you put them in lemonade instead of water. Don't quote me on that though

The lemonade would have a similar effect to the vinegar and sugar solution. The lemon would provide acid which helps to kill bacteria in the water, and the sugar would provide carbohydrates to the flower, helping the bloom last longer.

And the lemonade would smell a whole lot better than vinegar, too!