Burlap Wrapped Bouquets

Flower Care

Our signature burlap-wrapped bouquets are our signature fresh flower arrangements designed with mixed farm fresh flowers and greenery! Whether you purchased or received a Fun Size, Just Right, Big Love, or Fancy Pants burlap-wrapped fresh flower bouquet, this short list of care tips hits on everything from unboxing to taking a great pic of your arrangement. Keep reading!

Our signature burlap-wrapped bouquets are delivered to you or your recipient fully designed so you can go from box to table top in two shakes! All you'll need is a small work area (we like something that's easily cleaned like a kitchen counter or craft table), a pair of scissors or garden shears, a clean vase, and some fresh water. Let's go!

Step 1: Unwrap Your Bouquet

As much as we love wrapping your bouquet in burlap and pretty tissue paper and tying it with a ribbon, everything but the twine or tape holding your bouquet's design in place has gotta go once you've popped the box and snipped the zip tie.

What to do with all those trimmings and trappings? The burlap is 100% compostable (hint, hint) but we've seen creative customers upcycle it into everything from pillow covers to gift wrap. As for the tissue paper, sponge, and the rest, we recommend recycling and reusing as much as you can before turning to your trash can.

Why burlap? When our founder and CEO started Farmgirl she wanted to find an alternative to plastic for finishing her flowers arrangements. She settled on burlap not only because it’s compostable but because the number of local coffee roasters meant a lot of empty burlap coffee sacks keep us in steady supply!

NOTE: We carefully make, wrap, and ship each each and every arrangement but sometimes, flowers are flowers! See a broken stem? Not to worry! We always ship one to a few extra stems (it depends on the arrangement) for these “just in case” situations. 

Step 2: Find The Right Size Vase

If you didn't order a vase with your arrangement, it's time to find one from your personal collection. Don't have just the thing you're looking for on hand? Get creative! We love to repurpose glass jars, glassware, pots, pitchers, and other common kitchen items. Whatever you decide to use, it's important to choose something that's (1) clean, (2) tall enough for the flowers to sit somewhat upright without toppling over and (3) large enough to give your farm fresh flowers some room to bloom. As far as sizing goes, here are some (hopefully helpful) general guidelines:

  • Fun Size Burlap Bouquet — 2.5-3” opening

  • Just Right Burlap Bouquet — 3-3.5” opening

  • Big Love Burlap Bouquet — 4-4.5” opening

  • Fancy Pants Burlap Boquet — 5”+ opening

Step 3: Trim Your Flower Stems

We ship your stems on the longer side to help keep them stay healthy during transit, but they need a quick trim so they can rehydrate and fit nicely in a vase after a nice stem trim. So once you’ve unboxed and unwrapped your bouquet, grab your pair of scissors or garden shears and give your stems a quick trim.

How much should you remove? Trim enough so that the lowest flower in your arrangement sits 1/2" above the lip of your vase. Even if you like the height of your flowers out of the box, we still recommend trimming at least ½” off of the ends at a 45˚ angle to ensure the stems don’t sit flush with the bottom of the vase (which can prevent the flowers from absorbing water they need to stay fresh and beautiful!).

Step 4: Hydrate Your Fresh Flowers

Once you’ve given your flower stems a nice trim, fill your vase or vessel 1/2 - 3/4 full with cool tap water and drop your arrangement in to hydrate. Psst – don't forget to release the tape or twine holding your arrangement together to allow the fresh flowers to absorb all the water it needs to hydrate and bloom beautifully! Lastly, gently run your fingers between the bits and blooms to give each element some breathing (and blooming) room as they hydrate from their journey to your doorstep.

Now that your blooms are doing their thing, here are a few tips to help your flowers last as long as possible!

  • Change the water daily (or as often as you can remember). This helps reduce the growth of bacteria in the vase water which will help you to get the best vase life from your bouquet.

  • Avoid excess heat and light. Unlike flowers in the field, cut flowers do best out of direct sunlight and extreme heat. That means sunny windowsills, kitchen countertops next to hot stoves, tabletops underneath heating vents, and generally anywhere outdoors is off limits if you want your arrangement to last.

  • Avoid overcrowding. We send many varieties un-bloomed or under bloomed so you can witness every moment of their blossoming beauty. However, as your arrangement opens, it might outgrow your vase. If this happens, don't be afraid to rehome a flower or two to a bud vase make sure everyone has enough room to bloom.

  • Remove dead or dying flowers. Just like changing the vase water, this will help prevent excessive bacteria build up and extend the life of the rest of the flowers in the arrangement!