Tried skipping the pre-soak on my last run of sunflowers

Everyone says you gotta soak them overnight to keep them from drooping. I skipped it for a 75-stem order last week and they held up fine for 3 days. Did I just get lucky or has anyone else stopped doing it?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant_allen854mo ago

Not sure I'd call it luck exactly, but I think you might have just had the right conditions that time. I've been doing flowers for about ten years now and I see this come up a lot. The pre-soak isn't just about preventing drooping, it's about getting water deep into the stem before they sit out in a cooler or on a shelf. If your sunflowers were really fresh from the field and the weather was cool, they might not need it. But try that in July with stems that have been sitting for a day or two and you'll see a big difference. I always do the overnight soak because it's cheap insurance, and I've had too many late-wilt disasters to skip it. For a big order like 75 stems, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

gracewebb4mo ago

Oh come on, that's a lot of hand wringing over a stalk of flowers. I've skipped the soak plenty of times in July and had zero issues. You're acting like it's some magic bullet, but sometimes it's just how you handle them after they're cut.

adamgreen4mo ago

Ten years back I worked at a grocery store produce section. We had these fancy orchids that kept dying in the display cooler. Everyone blamed the grower. Turned out we were watering them with ice cold water straight from the hose. The shock was killing them. Same principle here. Little details add up over time. People always want one magic fix but it's usually a chain of small things. You're right to soak them overnight. Better to waste a few hours than lose a whole batch of flowers.