Cut Flower Care and Handling: Alstroemeria
Floralife has been doing a bit of spring cleaning around our website, rearranging things and sprucing up. We have expanded our Care and Handling section to offer a bunch of great useful tips for postharvest processing of many different varieties of cut flowers. Let’s go down the list! Today’s star is the Alstroemeria!
A timely post, as we just picked up a lovely bunch of pink/coral Alstroemeria at Publix (and it came with a packet of Floralife Flower Food!) Alstroemeria, also known as Peruvian Lily, Lily of the Inca, Parrot Lily, or Princess Lily, is native to the Andes Mountains in South America. It comes in a variety of colors, except blue.
As usual, Floralife has some practical Alstroemeria care and handling tips for the grower, the wholesaler and the retailer, so let’s take a look!
For the grower, the first caution is that Alstroemeria is ethylene sensitive, so a treatment of Floralife EthylBloc™ Technology is advised, as well as placing the flowers in a solution of Floralife Flower Food 300 before shipping.
Buying tips for the wholesaler and retailer: a lot depends on your supplier. Did they give the flowers an ethylene treatment? Stored wet or dry? Is there any leaf yellowing? How many blooms are open?
You will also find useful tips on processing, such as removing foliage and re-cutting stems. And again, more cautions regarding ethylene. It’s a killer!
Additionally, you will also learn about pretreatments, holding solutions, storage tips, and cleaning solutions for your cutters, buckets and surfaces – namely, D.C.D. ® Cleaner!
We also provide a number of troubleshooting tips for this lovely – but fragile – flower.
As we said, this is merely a preview. There is a ton of good Alstroemeria info on the site, so check it out!
How about you? Are you a fan of Alstroemeria? Let us know in the comments section!