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9 comments to Gerbera daisy cut flower care

• ALICE SILVESTER

  March 14th, 2009 at 7:30 am · Reply

  Cut flowers

  The long stems of my Gerbera bent and looked a bit wilted. I slit drinking straws lengthwise and wrapped around the stems. Now they stand up straight and looking beautiful.

• admin

  March 14th, 2009 at 7:36 am · Reply

  · Reply · Edit

  I was wondering about the shelf life of Gerbera daisies in wedding bouquets. How long can they be out of water before they start wilting?

  Hi Sheri
  Cut Gerbera are very popular as wedding flowers. A cut flower will last 7-10 days in water. If they are fresh and conditioned properly, then they should last through the wedding. When hydrating Gerberas suspend their heads to keep the stems straight, they have a tendency to turn to the light (phototropic). Designers will wire them as a precaution to droopy heads. I would suggest that the bouquets be placed in water during the reception to keep them fresh looking. This site has some hints on conditioning Gerbs. .http://www.floraldesigninstitute.com/page004.06.052.htm

• admin

  March 14th, 2009 at 7:38 am · Reply

  Anita
  March 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm · Reply · Edit
  I bought a single Gerbera daisy and put it in vase with water right away. Do I need to buy flower food to give to it? Or is a vase full of water good enough? Thanks!

  HI Anita
  No, you don’t need to buy flower food. You can make your own mix. Go to cut flower care for a recipe. Place 1tsp of sugar and 2 drops of bleach into a gallon of water.

• Joi

  March 14th, 2009 at 7:53 am · Reply

  I wanted to know if there is a way to dry or preserve a wedding bouquet of gerbera daisies. I have been told by some the you can not dry gerbera daisies like you can other flowers. I would really like to keep my bouquet in tact. Thanks.

  Gerbera’s will not dry well. You will loose the color in the drying process. One way of preserving flowers which can be costly is to freeze dry them. Special drying equipment is used to dry flowers. I know they have had good results in preserving roses, but I don’t know about Gerbera. Try googling preserving/drying flowers perhaps there is someone in your area that does this sort of preservation.

• Anne

  March 31st, 2009 at 8:46 am · Reply

  I wanted to use mini Gerberas for the guy’s boutonnieres for my wedding, but I was told they don’t hold up well. Would they last a few hours?

  Hi Anne
  It is true that gerbera is very sensitive to wilting. I usually don’t recommend using them in boutonnieres as the flower is quite large but a mini gerb should work nicely. They can last for a few hours if the flower is fresh. I haven’t tried this, but maybe if the bout was made the same way as they do with orchids with wet cotton wrapped at the bottom on the stem it could keep for a few hours.

• Amanda

  April 29th, 2009 at 7:29 am · Reply

  Last week I received gerbera daisies as a gift in a small 5″ pot. They started to wilt so I watered them and watched that the soil never dried, they came back to life. This morning when I came into the office I noticed they are wilted. They are not over or under-watered. How can I bring them back to life?
  I should also mention that the others who recived flowers are doing the same thing as myself and their daisies are doing just fine.

  Hi Amanda
  If the soil is moist and the plant is wilted then it has a root rot problem from too much water. Does the water drain out from the bottom of the pot?

• Donna

  May 19th, 2009 at 2:09 pm · Reply

  Root rot
  Hi, a friend was going to throw away her Gerbera Daisy that has root rot,(it is watered well and all the leaves are sagging) I took it today hoping that I’d be able to help it. I have it outdoors in Chattanooga, TN in the sun. Can you tell me how to keep it alive? Thanks

  Hi Donna
  Main problem is with overwatering. If the root ball is kept too wet and soggy, it will cause root rot. You can repot it in fresh well-drained soil water it and put the plant in partial shade until it recovers. Let the top 1″ of soil dry before watering again.
  Or drench it with a fungicide to help control the root rot. It may or may not work.

• Liz W.

  July 31st, 2009 at 6:03 pm · Reply

  I was given a bunch of 6 cut gerberas and a bunch of pinks/carnations last Saturday and I put them together in the same vase. Within a few days the gerbera stems were wilting and going slimy, I wiped them and cut the stems at a slant, and used clean water, resorting to drinking straws to keep some upright, but I have gradually lost them and now the final four have died off. The carnations are still fine, the room was cool so what happened to my gerberas, did they react with the carnations, and should have been in a seperate vase or was I just unlucky. I am so disappointed.

  Hi Liz
  Gerberas are very sensitive to wilt and will reflect how they were handled before you bought them. The flowers may have been older. They can easily get infected if their water is not clean. Did you use a floral preservative-(that can extend the life of the flower)? Carnations have a reputation of being long lived as a cut flower. Combining carnations and gerbera should not have any affect on the flowers longevity. I would state my dissappointment at the place that you bought them.

• Karen Scott

  November 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm · Reply

  I bought gerber daisies today from Whole Foods. Had netting on the flower, a clear plastic sleeve on the upper part of the stem. Both are removeable. I removed the netting kept the sleeve on the upper part of the stems so they wouldn’t wilt. Doesn’t look all that great. I was wondering if I can you mix vodka w/ water and keep the gerber daisies from wilting? Vodka works extremely well with tulips, so what about gerber daisies. The party is this Sunday, November 22nd, you may not be able to reply Saturday, but still let me know for future parties. Thanks, Karen

  HI Karen
  The plastic supports are there to protect the flower heads and keep them from bending toward the light source. I have not tried vodka with water to keep them from wilting but have read that adding vodka will help inhibit ethylene production thus preserving the flowers longer and keep them from wilting. You have to have the right proportion of water to vodka (up to 8 percent alcohol)or it could have the opposite effect and wilt the flowers. Here’s more info. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-vodka-citrus-sodas-keep-flowers-fresh

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