No-nonsense ways to keep cut flowers longer

• Use plain, lukewarm water for most cut flowers, but use cold water for bulb flowers, such as daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips.
• Change the water every 2 days – don’t just top it off. This is the single most effective thing you can do to keep your flowers looking fresh.
• Keep flowers out of direct sunlight, and move them to a cool place at night.
• Give daffodils their own vase – daffodil stems give off a compound that is toxic to other flowers.
• Keep cut flowers away from fruit, which releases a gas that causes flowers to age faster.

Combine two tablespoons Epsom salt with a gallon of water for an easy fertilizer. The magnesium and sulfur in the salt encourages leaves to grow bushier and the plants to bloom more often.

A few years back, we were having our house painted. Imagine our surprise and frustration when we discovered sawdust, plus a large sampling of the bug life in our region, clumped into our freshly painted exterior. Yuck. You guessed it – our neighbors were having landscaping done, taking trees out (sawdust) and clearing ivy (bugs), at the same time our house was being painted.

Soak clay pots in water for 2-3 hours before using them to repot plants. Otherwise, when you water the newly-potted plants, the pots are likely to absorb the water.

Spread used coffee grounds around plants before rain or watering for a slow-release nitrogen boost. This coffee-ground mulch also can help reduce the ravages of slugs and snails.