Who writes this. MapToSite sells the page and the printed kit described at the end, so read the price section knowing that. The care facts below are not ours: they come from university extension services, the RHS, and the Society of American Florists' own trade magazine, and where those sources disagree with each other — they do, on two points — both positions are shown with dates at the bottom. Vase life varies by variety, by the grower's cold chain and by the room the flowers end up in; nothing here is a promise about a particular bunch.
The two questions, and why only one of them fits on paper
A wrapped bunch leaves the shop with a card in the sleeve. Most of that card is permanent: the shop's name, the phone number, "keep away from direct sun", "top up the water". A customer reads it once, at home, with the flowers already in the vase — which is exactly when the second question starts.
The questions that actually cost a florist time are the ones that arrive by phone and DM:
- "How do I keep these alive?" — usually asked the next morning, when the card has been thrown away with the paper.
- "What have you got today? How much is a bunch? Can I pick it up at six?" — asked all afternoon, and answered differently every day.
One of those fits on a card. The other does not, and printing it is how shops end up with a stack of cards for last week's roses. Splitting the two — permanent things on paper, today's things behind a code — is the whole idea, and it costs one printed card instead of a new card every Monday.
The five lines that belong on the sleeve
Care cards fail by being too long. The version below is five lines, and every line is one a customer can do in under a minute without reading a paragraph. It fits on the back of a business card.
1. Cut 2 cm off each stem at an angle before it goes in the vase.
2. Clean vase, cool water two-thirds full, with the sachet.
3. Change the water and re-cut every two days.
4. No fruit bowl, no radiator, no direct sun.
5. Daffodils: own vase for the first day.
Why these five and not the usual eight: each one maps to a documented cause of early collapse. A clean container and clean water matter because bacteria multiply in vase water and clog the water-conducting vessels. Re-cutting every couple of days removes the blocked end so the stem can drink again. Foliage left under the water rots and spoils the water, which is why the strip-the-lower-leaves step belongs in the shop, not on the card. And ripening fruit gives off ethylene, which ages flowers and drops petals — the fruit bowl is not a superstition, it is a gas.
What the card should not do is promise a number of days. Extension services put healthy cut flowers at ten to fourteen days under good conditions; a bunch that sat warm in a delivery van will not reach it, and the customer who was promised two weeks will remember the promise, not the conditions.
Two tips that sound right and do not survive the research
Flower care has a folklore layer, and two of its most repeated tips are contradicted by the industry's own postharvest research. A shop does not have to argue with customers about it, but it should not print them either.
| What everyone says | What the research finds | What to print instead |
|---|---|---|
| "Cut the stems on a slant so they drink better." | The angle does not change vase life. Designers slant stems so they push into floral foam; the cut end's surface area does not increase uptake. What matters is a sharp, clean tool — a crushed stem from blunt scissors drinks badly and goes slimy sooner. | "Cut 2 cm off with a sharp knife or scissors." The angle is optional; the sharpness is not. |
| "Always cut stems under water." | Studies cited by the Society of American Florists found underwater cutting reduced vase life or at best matched a dry cut, because microbes from the cut stems collect in the water and are drawn back into the next stems. | Nothing. Cut dry, with a clean tool, and change the water — that is the part that works. |
| "Stand them in warm water and they'll perk up." | Water temperature alone does not extend vase life; warm water speeds opening, which is useful in the shop before an event and not what a customer wants at home. | "Cool water" for most flowers. Spring bulbs — tulips, daffodils, hyacinths — prefer cold. |
This is worth printing carefully rather than skipping, because it is the difference between a card that repeats what every shop says and a card that is right. It also keeps a florist out of an argument: a customer who was told to cut underwater and watched the bunch fade in four days does not conclude that the flowers were old — they conclude the shop gave bad advice, which is worse.
The daffodil rule — one line that separates a florist from a card printer
Daffodil sap contains alkaloids and polysaccharides that damage other flower species. Extension guidance is blunt about the cost: without proper conditioning, daffodils in a mixed bunch can shorten the vase life of the other species by up to half. The fix is simple and takes a day of foresight: stand freshly cut or re-cut daffodils in their own water for 12 to 24 hours before they join anything else. After that they can share a vase, and even be re-cut, without harming the rest.
Postharvest notes from UC Davis describe the same mechanism — a gelatinous substance that transfers through a common holding solution — and put the separate-bucket time at a few hours. Grower guidance for narcissus settles on 12 to 24 hours, with a vase life of four to six days for the daffodils themselves. If the shop's spring mixed bunches are made the same morning the daffodils arrive, that is the one production habit most likely to be quietly shortening every other stem in the wrap.
The care-card line, in five words: "Daffodils: own vase for the first day." It tells the customer something true and unusual, it protects the tulips in the same bunch, and it is the kind of detail that gets a shop recommended.
What goes on the card, what goes on the page
The split is not about how important a fact is; it is about how often it changes.
| On the printed card (changes yearly or never) | On the page behind the code (changes daily or hourly) |
|---|---|
| Shop name, address, phone | Which bunches are made up right now |
| The five care lines | This week's price of a wrapped bunch, and what is in it |
| "No fruit bowl, no radiator, no direct sun" | How many of each are left |
| Opening hours | Today's same-day cutoff time |
| One line for standing orders | What has sold out since the morning |
Two consequences follow. First, the card can be a decent weight of paper, because it is not going in the bin next week. Second, the printed code must point at an address, not at a file. A PDF or a photo of today's board gets a new address every time it is replaced, and a printed code that points at one specific file stops working the day the bunch changes. A page address does not change, which is what lets one code stay on the sleeve for years.
The page behind the code: eight blocks, in this order
- Today's bunches — name, what is in it, price, how many left. Sold-out items stay on the list with a mark rather than disappearing; the person who drove over for peonies needs to see that the peonies are gone, not wonder whether they misread.
- Same-day cutoff — one time, in the shop's own time zone, with what "same day" means: made today, or delivered today.
- The five care lines — the same words as the card. If the two disagree, the card is wrong and the customer will trust the card.
- Vase life by flower type — a short table: daffodils four to six days, and a plain sentence that a mixed bunch lasts as long as its shortest-lived stem. No promises.
- Standing orders — weekly or fortnightly, with the pause rule ("skip a week by Sunday") in one line.
- Events, funerals, weddings — a separate line and a separate form. These enquiries are not price-shopped the same way and should not sit under "pick up a bunch today".
- Where and when — address, hours, parking, and the honest note about whether the shop is a workshop with a counter or a counter with a workshop.
- One button — call, message, or order. One, not four.
The page's job is to be edited in under a minute from the counter. If marking two bunches sold out takes longer than answering the phone, it will not get done, and a page that is three days stale is worse than no page — the code on the sleeve then actively misleads.
The cutoff time is the most valuable line on the page
Most disappointing flower orders are not a quality problem; they are a timing problem. Somebody asks for delivery "today" at 4pm, the shop can make it but cannot deliver it, and the answer comes too late for either side to fix it. Putting the cutoff where a customer sees it before they ask removes that conversation.
Three numbers make the line complete: the time an order must be in for same-day delivery, the time for same-day pickup, and what happens after — "after 2pm we make it tomorrow morning" is a better sentence than "same-day delivery may not be available". If the cutoff moves on busy days (Valentine's, Mother's Day, Chuseok), the page is the only place that can say so on the day, which is precisely why it is a page and not a card.
Putting a code on a sleeve that gets crushed
A bouquet sleeve is the worst surface in the shop for a printed code: crinkled, curved, often transparent, and handled with wet hands. Four rules keep it scannable.
- Keep it off the fold. A code that crosses a crease loses modules where the paper folds; place it on a flat panel, at least one quiet zone (four modules of clear space) away from any edge or seam.
- Print it on a card, not the sleeve. A small card tucked into the sleeve keeps the code flat and lets the customer keep it after the wrap is gone — which is the moment the care questions start.
- Size by the distance it is read at. One unit of code per ten units of reading distance is the industry rule of thumb: 20 cm away needs about 2 cm of code, 50 cm needs 5 cm. It is a floor, not a promise, and it is not part of the QR standard.
- Print the address under the code. If the code is scratched or the ink smears, the shop still has a page someone can type.
The kit's counter card is 93.0 by 127.5 mm with a 48 mm code, which reads at about half a metre; the A4 poster carries a 126 mm code and reads at about 1.3 m. Both are measured from the PDFs the kit generates rather than estimated, and both assume matte paper — a glossy sleeve behind a shop window will reflect a street light into the scanner.
Five minutes to set up, and what it costs
The page can be built free: shop name, bunches, prices, hours, phone. It keeps the same address when it is edited, which is the only technical property that matters here. The printed pieces are optional and one-off:
| What | Price | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Live page | $0 | One page, edited by link, same address, no card required |
| Starter | $49 | The whole print kit, ten tables, one revision |
| Menu Kit | $89 | Thirty tables, two revisions, first draft within 24 hours |
| Full Launch | $149 | A hundred tables plus ten social cards |
None of it renews. A shop with no tables — which is most florists, a counter and a workshop — takes the page plus the eight files that are not table pieces, at the same price. Payment runs through Polar's checkout, which is the merchant of record, so card details never touch this site.
Before you print
- The five care lines fit on one card at a size a customer can read without glasses.
- Nothing on the card promises a number of days.
- The card and the page say the same five lines, word for word.
- The code points at the page address, not a PDF or an image.
- The code sits on a flat panel, clear of folds, with four modules of white space around it.
- The address is printed under the code in plain text.
- Today's bunches and the cutoff time are on the page and current.
- Somebody in the shop can edit the sold-out list in under a minute — try it with a customer at the counter before you order a thousand cards.
One page, one code, one card that does not go out of date
Build the page free and edit it from the counter. If you want the printed set — cards, poster, stickers — it is a one-off payment, delivered within 24 hours.
Related notes
- How big the QR code has to be, in millimetres — the printing floor, the quiet zone and the 1:10 rule explained.
- A gelato flavour board on one page — the daily-change problem, solved for tubs instead of stems.
- A market stall's price list that changes every Saturday — the weekly version, with one permanent code.
- A menu page without a POS contract — what the changing part of a shop's information actually costs.
- The three-year cost calculator — put a monthly builder or app figure in and see the total.
Sources
Read on 15 November 2026. Vase life and consumer care steps (10–14 days under good conditions; 45-degree cut at least ½ inch; strip foliage below the waterline; lukewarm water; condition in a cool dark place; change the water and re-cut every 2–3 days; keep away from sun, draughts and heat) — NC State Extension, Selecting & Caring for Cut Flowers, updated 5 June 2025; UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Care for Cut Flowers. Where the research contradicts the folklore (the angle of the cut does not affect vase life; underwater cutting decreases it or matches a dry cut; warm water does not extend vase life; smashing stem ends damages them; home-made preservatives are inferior; up to 75% of rose varieties are ethylene-sensitive) — Terril A. Nell, PhD, "Relying on care facts, not fiction", Floral Management, May 2016, Society of American Florists. Spring bulbs prefer cold water; change water every two days; trim 2 cm — RHS, Cut flowers: cutting and conditioning, and its consumer summary. Daffodil sap (alkaloids and polysaccharides; up to half the vase life of other species without conditioning; 12–24 hours in their own water) — University of Illinois Extension, Bright blooms: How to care for flower bouquets, 13 February 2026; UC Davis Postharvest Research and Extension Center, Daffodil (gelatinous exudate, separate bucket for a few hours); Johnny's Selected Seeds, Narcissus key growing information (12–24 hours; vase life 4–6 days). The 1:10 code-size rule is an industry rule of thumb, not part of ISO/IEC 18004. Printed sizes — the 93.0 × 127.5 mm counter card with a 48 mm code and the A4 poster with a 126 mm code — are measured from the PDFs this site's print kit generates (work/tools/en_print_kit.py, error correction M, four-module margin). Prices — $0 page and the $49 / $89 / $149 one-off kits — are the published figures on /showcase/order. Nothing here is horticultural or legal advice for a particular shop, and vase life depends on the variety and the cold chain before the flowers reach the counter.