Back in the fall when I was competing in the White Room Challenge with LaZBoy, I had trouble styling my flowers. In my mind’s eye, I envisioned dressing the grand room with full and fluffy rose bouquets, but I only had 4 dozen very tight white rosebuds to work with. The buds were TIGHT and no amount of warm water would open them in time for the photo shoot. I made the best of my tight buds, but it bugged me to no end that my flowers didn’t look the way I had hoped. I just knew there had to be a way to force roses to open and get that full bloom look instantly!
Then, back in November I was tasked with styling nesting tables for a Pottery Barn Challenge. Again, I had these super teeny, tight rose buds to work with. I decided that this time I would be brave and see if it was possible to open up those blooms. You can see below how great they turned out! I’m sure I’m not the first one to try “the rose trick”, but I didn’t know it was possible to manually open up your roses without damaging the rose until I tried. I’ll show you how I did it!
Pick up your rose and gently pluck off any damaged petals on the exterior.
Hold the rose with your least dominant hand and with your dominant hand place your thumb into the outer petals of the bud. Spin the stem of the rose in one direction and use a your thumb and index finger to unfurl the petals. You want to bend them outwards as you turn. Be gentle yet firm. You don’t want to break your petals, but you do want to give it a little force to bend them backwards. After you unfurl a rose or two you will get the hang of it.
The center of the rose can be tricky if the bud is tight. This rose was partially opened which made it very easy to arrange.
Here is the before and after of a very tight rosebud. You can see that the center isn’t perfect on this one; however, the rose trick worked in giving a fuller bloom.
And here is my finished arrangement looking full and glorious! I’ve done this several times now, and the roses last just as long as they would have had I let them open naturally. I hope you can use this trick when you have a dinner party tonight and you need those flowers open STAT! Feel free to pin the tip for later reference and thanks for stopping by. 🙂
What a fantastic tip! I’ll be using this for sure. Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks for sharing this tip. I have been gifted with dozens of roses that did not fully open before. It is very disappointing when they dry up, ever having opened!