4 Tips for Picking the Best Grocery Store Flowers, According to an Expert — Shopping

If you're a glass-half-empty kind of person, there's a degree of futility when it comes to buying something perishable like fresh flowers. They're on their way out the door before you even get them home. But even knowing that, it's just so nice having fresh blooms around the house. It's that last touch that just finishes the room — the flourish that sets the tone for the dining table, or makes the living room more inviting.

Still, it's something we want to get our money's worth out of, so it pays to choose wisely. I'd always sort of picked randomly, whatever colors I liked, and I was pretty sure I was doing it wrong. Luckily, Carol Wilder, a horticulture technician for Kentucky's Cooperative Extension System (and who has worked in a florist shop herself), and had some wisdom to bequeath about long-lasting flowers.

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