Bought flowers wilt within days of bringing them home? Uncovering the tricks of the flower market

For most plants, the most grueling summer has passed, and the sense of autumn is growing stronger by the day. Plants that should be showing signs of recovery are still giving no sign of activity for a long time, and some impatient flower lovers rush off to the flower market to replenish their collection with new flowers. However, for beginner flower lovers, you must keep your eyes wide open when you go to the flower market; there are several kinds of flowers you must never buy, because even if you take them home you will not be able to keep them alive.

Diamond mini roses

Roses are the flowers that couples give each other on Valentine's Day and holidays. Among them are red, green, and yellow ones, all of which look very eye-catching. However, this so-called diamond mini rose is not a rose at all, but a Chinese rose (Rosa chinensis), and at the flower market this variety is not one single rose plant, but "many plants", with a single flower perched atop each and every stem. Many flower lovers see it and think they have gotten a bargain, but that is not actually the case.

Industry secret: most of these plants are cuttings taken from a single cut stem, and the ones you see flowering have been forced into bloom with large doses of hormones. Once the surface illusion of profuse blooms has passed, the flowers and stems will wither one after another, and the process may take only 2-4 days. They are extremely hard to keep alive.

Drugged variegated succulents

There are thousands upon thousands of succulent varieties. Many people choose them for their easy, low-effort care, and because most have compact forms they can be placed on windowsills and desks without taking up space. However, at the flower market, the red, pink, and white colors of succulents may all have been created with artificial chemical sprays.

Industry secret: to make the plants more eye-catching, unscrupulous sellers repeatedly spray chemicals on succulents. Once the color is overdone, it affects the plant's own growth, especially at the leaf core and the top. The more color is used, the greater the risk of killing the plant. Beginners must be extra careful when choosing.

Danish campanula

Danish campanula is a flower that many beginners are drawn to, because it has very high ornamental appeal, bearing romantic blue-purple flowers, and it has few leaves, often giving the illusion of a pot bursting with blooms and no leaves in sight.

Industry secret: Danish campanula is famously a "one-week flower". In the greenhouse, to create the illusion of a pot bursting with blooms, hormones are often sprayed on it. So after it arrives home, because of the change in environment plus the hormones having overdrawn its life, the flowers and leaves begin to wither, and it basically dies within 7 days.