Keeping flowers alive in a Lahore summer

Almost every guide to cut flowers is written for a temperate climate. In a Lahore June, several of its assumptions break.

Buy in the morning, always

Wholesale stock is cut overnight and sold from dawn. By two in the afternoon, anything left in an uncooled market has spent six hours above forty degrees and its useful life is already half gone — regardless of how it looks when you buy it. This is the main reason we buy at six and stop.

The air conditioner matters more than the vase

A bouquet in an air-conditioned room lasts roughly twice as long as the same bouquet three metres away in an unconditioned one. If you can only do one thing, move the vase.

Avoid the window entirely

Direct sun through glass will cook an arrangement in an afternoon. North-facing rooms, interior tables, away from the window.

Cold water, more often

Warm water accelerates bacterial growth. Use cold water and change it daily rather than every second day through June, July and August.

Which flowers actually cope

Some stock simply does not survive our summer, and we take it off the site rather than sell it and deal with the complaints:

• Carnations — ten to fourteen days, the most heat-tolerant thing we sell
• Chrysanthemums — a week and more, very reliable
• Roses — five to six days in summer against eight in winter
• Orchids as plants — months, because they are not cut at all
• Tulips and peonies — genuinely will not cope, which is why they are seasonal

If you want something that will last through a hot week without attention, send a plant. It is not a compromise; it is the better gift in July.