
Flower care guide
Layer upon layer of tissue-thin petals wrapped around a dark centre, on a slender stem that bends where it likes. They look painted rather than grown.
The stems are hollow and soft, which means two things: cut them cleanly with something sharp, and change the water frequently, because soft stems foul water faster than woody ones. Every two days is right.
Keep them cool. Ranunculus open fast in warmth and a cool room adds days to their life.
They keep opening in the vase, and each bloom gets wider and looser as it goes. The stems bend and curve as they drink, so an arrangement that started upright will loosen into something more relaxed. That is the flower behaving normally.
Keep them away from ripening fruit, which gives off ethylene gas and shortens their life noticeably.
A single ranunculus bloom can hold well over a hundred petals, each one thin enough to see light through.