Broken Stems? No Problem!

Going about your daily maintenance routine, you start culling your flower display. Much to your dismay you find several bunches and bouquets with broken stems. You immediately begin separating these bunches to remove from the sales floor and are muttering to yourself as you start doing the math in your head of the lost sales and inventory. Don't get discouraged! Provided it's not a disease related issue like Botrytis, being the clever designer that you are, you can put a fresh spin on these stems and recoup your would-be loss.

Stem Salvage

Depending on the length of the stems in question you can try out some of these creative solutions:

• Remove broken stems and combine bouquets, especially when you have multiples of the same bouquet this is can work well. If you don't have enough to re-create the bouquet completely, use stems to create hand-tied bouquets. These showy originals really draw attention to the flower shop!
• Make arrangements! This is a great way to work through your hard good inventory and allows you to combine stems in the lengths you have available to you.
• Any weddings, proms or other events coming up? Broken stems are great to utilize in corsages, boutonnieres, head pieces, bridal and bridesmaid bouquets. The possibilities are endless!
• Offer your customers a nifty gifty! Upgrade gift bags or baskets using shorter stems in water tubes to give gifts something extra.
• Wine and Champagne bottle toppers are a great upgrade idea, especially around the holidays - a bit of ribbon and a flower cluster makes any bottle fabulous!
• Boxes of petals are a big hit. They can be stored on display in the arrangement and will create impulse purchases.
• Making potpourri is another great alternative for using broken stems and blooms. You will need a drier and some essential oils, but the return on investment happens very quickly.

How do you turn your trash into treasure? Contact FloraLife, we'd love to hear from you!