One of the joys of growing roses is bringing them in-doors to fill your home with their beauty and perfume. It’s best to cut roses off their bushes in either the early morning or the late afternoon, avoiding the wilting heat of midday. Put each stem into a pail of lukewarm water as soon as it is cut.
Leave any buds that are closed tight; if you snip them at this stage, they will never open. Also avoid fully opened blooms, which won’t last long in a vase before they start drooping and dropping their petals. The ideal stems to cut ate those with partially opened buds or half opened blooms.
Use a well-sharpened pruning shears and cut the stems at 45- degree angle, making a sharp cut with one motion. Cut each stem at a point just above a five-leaflet leaf; on most stems there should be several from which to choose. Making the cuts at these places will encourage new shoots to spring forth, renewing your supply of blooms to enjoy. Also, to avoid stunting a bush’s growth, never cut more than a third of its stems in any cutting or pruning season.
Keep the cut blooms refrigerated in water until you are ready to arrange them in a vase. To groom them for arrangement, strip off any leaves and thorns that would be below the water in the vase or other container. If these are left on, they will rot, producing bacteria that will cause the stems to decay rapidly.
Holding the stem underwater (to prevent stem damage), make a fresh, angled cut at the end of each stem. Place the roses in the vase and add water up to about two-thirds the length of the stems. You might want to use a preservative powder from a local florist or garden shop. Crushed aspirin or a tea-spoon of sugar or lemony soft drink have all been proposed as floral life extenders.
To keep enjoying the beauty of your roses through the fall and winter, however, you’ll need to dry or preserve them. Cut the roses early in the day, when they are richest in essential oils, and then preserve them using one of the following three methods.
Method 1:
The first takes a little more time and effort than the others, but it holds the color best. Line the bottom of an airtight container with an inch of silica gel (available at florists’ and garden stores); place the roses face-up in the gel and sprinkle more gel over and between the petals, until there is another inch of gel on top of the roses; cover the container and allow the roses to sit three to four days, until they have dried completely.
Method 2:
The second method lets you preserve a whole bouquet at one time. Remove most of the leaves; gather the stems into a bunch, varying the flower heights; tie the stems together securely with a length of string; and hang the bunch upside down in a warm, dry place away from direct light until it is dry.
Method 3
The third method is the simplest for drying petals and buds. Lay them flat on a few layers of paper towels and stir or turn them over each day, until they are fully dried. For quicker results, lay the petals and buds in a single layer on a baking sheet and pop them into a cool oven (110 degrees), with the oven door slightly ajar to let the moisture escape. Shake the sheet occasionally to promote even drying. This process takes only an hour or two.