Vase life of 58 new cut flowers

The study is part of a 13-year project to determine the vase life of promising new cut flowers and foliages and overall effectiveness of commercial hydration and holding solutions. Stems of 58 cultivars from 22 genera were pretreated with either a commercial hydrating solution or deionized (DI) water for 4 h and placed in either a commercial holding solution or DI water for 44 h. Treatment with a holding preservative produced the longest vase life for 21 cultivars in the genera Agastache, Antirrhinum, Digitalis, Eustoma, Filipendula, Helianthus, Lilium, Penstemon, Perovskia, Physostegia, and Tagetes indicating that holding preservatives should be used with most taxa. Commercial hydrators increased the vase life of one cultivar in each of three genera, Agastache, Hibiscus and Tagetes, but reduced the vase life of two cultivars in two genera, Helianthus and Tagetes. All treatments produced a statistically similar vase life for 32 cultivars in the genera Campanula, Coreopsis, Daucus, Dianthus, Digitalis, Helianthus, Lilium, Monarda, Rudbeckia, Saliva, Stokesia, Tagetes, and Veronica. Of the 58 taxa tested, most of the taxa tested would be suitable for commercial production with a vase life of at least 10 days. Eupatorium 'Baby Joe' and Tagetes 'Oriental Gold' had a vase life longer than 21 days for at least one of the treatments. Campanula 'Champion Pro Deep Blue'; Dianthus 'Deep Maxine' and 'Magenta Bicolor'; Digitalis 'Plum Gold'; Eustoma 'Rosanne 1 Deep Brown' and 'Rosanne 1 Green'; Helianthus 'EH16-13'; Hibiscus 'Mahogany Splendor'; Tagetes '888 Deep Gold', 'Falcon Yellow', 'Garland Orange' and 'Storm Gold'; Rudbeckia 'Viette's Little Suzy' and Veronica 'Charlotte' had a vase life of 14 to 21 days. Twenty-three other taxa had a vase life of 10 to 14 days. Penstemon 'Arabesque Appleblossom', Perovskia 'Longin', and Saliva 'Burgundy Candles' had a vase life of less than 7 days.