Yup, cut flowers in vase need food too. Apparently, I’m not the only one who needs to eat, huh..
In my excitement the other day, I didn’t notice that the florist had attached a little sachet of powder to my card among the flowers. Unexpectedly found it yesterday when I changed the water in the vase, and yes, it was a packet of “flower food“.
It said: “Aquaplus - Fresh Flower Nutient & Water Clarifier.”
Oh well, whatever, I’ll just throw them in the water.
It was slightly bubbly, and I guess my flowers did find it yummy and nutritious, ’cause I came back from school today to find them all blooming and looking healthy! 
looking good there.. heehee..
Anyway, out of curiosity, I went and googled about flower food/flower nutrient. Hmm, notice how the word Google has now transcended beyond a proper noun to be a verb as well? ok, I’m digressing, anyway….
Apparently, because my flowers are separated from their usual source of food, this powder contains the sugars they need to help them to grow and bloom, and lower the water pH so that food & water can be transported more efficiently in their phloem & xylem system (or something).
I never knew of such thing as flower food. The florists that I bought flowers from in Malaysia never gave me or told me anything about flower food. No wonder they always die after a few days. The hot & humid tropical weather doesn’t help either. After 3 days, they always look ready to wither and drop dead.
And further research online revealed that putting an aspirin or 7-Up in the water may help a little bit, but flower food works better (’cause of the sugar & pH thingy).
There you go, interesting trivia for the day. 
Now let me go see my flowers again, and sing songs to them for some spiritual food.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:25 am
I knew about the asprin or panadol thing, but never heard about the 7-up though. Yet asprins last at most a week for my case….
I had a secondary school classmate who bought a bouquet of roses (and chickened out before he could give it to the girl, if i remembered corectly), didn’t know what to do with it. So he went into the bio lab, stole some chemicals, made “Larutan Kultur Knopp”. The roses died in a week.