From florists, for florists.
What to write on a flower care card for every bouquet
What to write on the care card you tuck into every bouquet, so the flowers last longer at your customer’s home and you get fewer complaints.
Why put a card in every bouquet?
Your customer walks out of the door with a beautifully arranged bouquet. At home, it goes into a vase of last week’s water, right next to the radiator. Three days later the phone rings: “My flowers have wilted.” Sound familiar?
A small card, tucked in next to the sachet of flower food, changes that. It costs next to nothing, looks professional and puts the responsibility where it belongs: with how the flowers are looked after at home. Here’s what to write on it.
Cut the stems and change the water
The first instruction, and the most important: “Cut 2–3 cm off the stems at an angle as soon as you get home. Repeat every 2 days.” An angled cut gives the flower more surface to drink through. A straight-cut stem sits flat on the bottom of the vase and gets blocked.
Next, the water. Be clear: “Change the water every 2 days with fresh, cold water. Wash the vase each time.” Old water goes cloudy and breeds bacteria, and the stems start to rot. Add this too: “Remove any leaves below the waterline.” A leaf that sits in water all the time is the first thing to spoil the whole vase.
And the sachet you put in the bag? “Dissolve the flower food in the water straight away.” Lots of customers bin it because they don’t know what it’s for. Tell them on the card.
Where NOT to put the bouquet
This is where you win the flowers the most extra days. Keep the list short and easy to read:
“Keep your bouquet away from: the fruit bowl with apples and bananas (the ethylene ages flowers fast), direct sun through a window, radiators and other heat sources, and draughts from an open door or window.” A real example you can even put on the label: tulips left next to a fruit bowl go limp within 24 hours, when in a clean vase they’d have lasted a week.
What a good care card looks like
Keep it short. Four or five lines, a clear font, your shop’s logo in one corner. Not an essay — nobody reads an essay. A thick business card or a stiff card tag is ideal.
Print a batch in one go and put one in every bouquet as a matter of routine. It becomes part of the experience: the customer sees care, not just flowers. And the next time someone rings to say “they’ve wilted”, you can gently ask whether they cut the stems and changed the water. It’s all there on the card.
