If you shop for cut flowers at a supermarket, be sure to ask the clerk at the flower desk if she had a new delivery of cut chrysanthemums. If you want to keep cut flowers for an extended time in the home, your best choice is fresh chrysanthemums.

A month ago, we bought a cluster of cut mums from a floral shop at our nearby Safeway supermarket. The floral counter was empty, but on checking the mums it was evident the flowers were only a day or two old. At home within the hour, we processed the mums according to the formula spelled out in our “preserving cut flowers” data sheet. We poured eight ounces of steaming hot water in a narrow vase, followed by three-plus ounces of concentrated lemon juice (warmed for 10 seconds in the microwave), and a tablespoon of clear Karo syrup. Fresh cuts followed on the base of the stems, then they were inserted in the preservative. We kept the open mums in a brightly lit room, but away from direct sun.

A week later, we changed the solution, making fresh cuts on each stem. Flowers were intact and tight. As the third week began, we discarded the old solution and prepared new preservative. Chrysanthemums were without any sign of aging at the end of the third week. Unfortunately, we couldn’t preserve the mums into a fourth week because we had am airline flight the next day to California.