Day four of a ten-day charter. The saloon arrangement still looks like the photograph you sent the owner, but the dining centrepiece has collapsed and the fruit bowl is sitting eighteen inches from it. That is not bad luck — that is chemistry, and it was predictable.
Expected Vase Life
Plan arrangements around the shortest-lived flower in them, and place the fragile things where they will be seen and replaced.
| Flower | Typical vase life (conditioned) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chrysanthemum | 14 to 21 days | Workhorse; unpopular with some owners |
| Carnation | 14 to 21 days | Very ethylene sensitive |
| Alstroemeria | 10 to 14 days | Excellent value; strip leaves, they yellow first |
| Orchid (cymbidium, phalaenopsis stem) | 10 to 21 days | Superb in heat and AC |
| Rose | 7 to 10 days | Bent neck means air blockage; re-cut |
| Lily | 7 to 14 days | Buds open in sequence; remove anthers |
| Hydrangea | 5 to 10 days | Drinks through the head as well as the stem |
| Tulip | 5 to 7 days | Keeps growing and bending toward light |
| Peony | 3 to 6 days | Buy in tight bud with colour showing |
| Sweet pea, poppy, gardenia | 2 to 4 days | Day-one table flowers only |
Ethylene: The Invisible Killer
Ethylene is a natural plant hormone and a gas. Ripening fruit — especially bananas, apples, avocados, tomatoes and melons — releases it continuously. So do ageing flowers, decaying foliage and engine exhaust. Ethylene triggers premature ageing: petals drop, buds fail to open, carnations sleep with their petals curled inward, and vase life can be cut by half or more.
- Never store flowers in the same fridge or store as fruit and vegetables. This is the most common floristry mistake on yachts, because fridge space is precious.
- Never place an arrangement next to a fruit bowl, on a buffet with ripening fruit, or beside the crew fruit basket.
- Highly sensitive: carnation, delphinium, sweet pea, snapdragon, alstroemeria, freesia, orchid. Less sensitive: chrysanthemum, sunflower, protea, anthurium.
- Remove spent blooms and yellowing foliage immediately — they produce ethylene and accelerate everything around them.
Care That Extends Life
- Fresh water and fresh flower food every two days, more often in heat.
- Re-cut stems 1 to 2 cm at each water change.
- Keep arrangements out of the AC airflow, out of direct sun, away from hot lamps and hot electronics.
- Move arrangements somewhere cool overnight when guests turn in, if the layout allows it.
Onboard Notes
- Cloudy, smelly vase water in a guest cabin is worse than no flowers at all. If in doubt, pull it.
- Do not top up a vase that has gone bad — strip it, wash the vase with a mild bleach solution, rinse thoroughly and rebuild.
- Warn the galley: a crate of ripening avocados in the dry store next to your flower bucket will quietly cost you the charter.