Experiment: Fresh Flower Food vs. water

1. Remember that to make the test data worthwhile you must be consistent throughout the experiment. Setting up the experiment and not looking at it for a week will not only give you useless data, but also waste your flowers.

2. Begin by getting 30 high quality flowers - poor quality flowers will bring poor results. Be sure the flowers are all the same variety, from the same store. This will eliminate some of the variables in the experiment and make the results more realistic.

3. Obtain 6 identical vases or jars. Label 3 water and 3 fresh flower food. Fill each container with the same amount of water. In the 3 containers labeled fresh flower food, add the correct amount of fresh flower food for that amount of water. Flower food can be obtained through your local florist, or on the consumer section of this web site.

4. Cut off the bottom inch from each stem and randomly place the flowers into the containers. Each container will have 5 flowers.

5. The jars should all be placed near each other, so all of them are exposed to similar environmental conditions. Do not place them near a draft or in direct sunlight.

6. The same person should take data every day. This person will have to decide when the flowers are dead. This person must be consistent in his/her decisions.

7. Once a flower is considered dead, record how long the flower lived in days. For example, if the experiment was set up on Monday and by Friday the flower was dead, then the flower lasted 4 days. Do not count the set up day.

8. After all the flowers in the jar have died, add the five day lengths together and divide by 5. For example 4+5+5+5+6=25/5=5= an average vase life of 5 days for that one jar. Do this for every jar.

9. Next find the average vase life of the two types of treatments by adding the three water jars' averaged days together and divide by 3. For example: 5 days + 6 days + 7 days / 3 = 6 days. Repeat for the 3 fresh flower food jars. Now you will have the average number of days that the group of 15 flowers lived.

10. The two values can now be compared and a realistic figure on the difference between the two can be found. This now means that you know how many days longer on an average, fresh flower treated flowers lasted over those kept in water.

Other useful information:
- Floralife Crystal Clear vs. home remedies
- Flower Food Dosage study