From our perspective as sweet pea plants (Lathyrus odoratus), the ideal time for you to harvest our stems is when the lowest one or two flowers on a stem are fully open and showing their vibrant colors and intoxicating fragrance. The remaining buds further up the stem should be plump, well-colored, and just beginning to crack open. Harvesting at this precise stage is crucial. If you cut too early, when the buds are still tight and green, they may never open in your vase. If you wait too long, until most flowers are open, our energy will have been largely expended, and our vase life will be significantly shortened. The mature, open flowers will also drop their petals quickly, creating a mess.
Timing your harvest to our daily biological rhythm is equally important. The very best time to make your cuts is in the early morning. After a cool night, our stems are utterly saturated with water and carbohydrates (food reserves). We are at our most turgid and hydrated. Alternatively, the late evening is also a suitable time, as we have begun to recover from the day's heat and transpiration stress. You must absolutely avoid harvesting during the heat of the day. At that time, we are often slightly wilted and stressed from the sun, and our water content is lower. A stem cut while stressed will not absorb water as efficiently later, leading to a shorter-lived bouquet.
How you make the cut directly impacts our health and future flowering. Please use a sharp, clean pair of pruners or scissors. Crushing our stems with dull tools damages our vascular tissues, the essential pipelines we use to drink water. Make your cut at a 45-degree angle; this creates a larger surface area for water uptake and prevents the stem end from sitting flat on the bottom of the vase, which can block water absorption. Always cut the stem just above a set of leaves or a side shoot. This encourages us to produce new growth branches, which will develop their own flower buds, ensuring you a continuous supply of blooms for future bouquets.
Your actions in the first few minutes after cutting are vital for our longevity. As soon as a stem is cut, air can be drawn into our vascular system, forming an embolism that blocks water flow. To prevent this, please have a bucket of tepid water ready and immediately place the cut stems into it. We recommend using a floral preservative in the water; it provides sugar to nourish the opening buds, acidifies the water to reduce bacterial growth, and contains a biocide to keep the water clean. Get us into this hydration solution swiftly and then move the bucket to a cool, dark place for several hours, or ideally overnight. This process, called conditioning, allows us to fully rehydrate and harden off before the shock of being arranged in a vase.
