Shea Simmons
Whether as an act of self-care or a way to add some color to your space, fresh flowers are always a good idea. But if you like keeping them in your kitchen, there’s one area you should avoid placing them.
Your fresh blooms should never be placed near a fruit bowl for the same reason you should keep your avocados separate from your apples.
Fruits like apples, bananas, and tomatoes emit a high level of a gas called ethylene. It’s produced as fruit ages, and when other fruits are exposed to it, they begin to ripen faster. While this can be a handy trick if you want to make guacamole, it’s bad for your flowers.
Caren Chang, Ph.D., explained that ethylene is necessary for fruits to ripen. Unfortunately, it will also speed up the aging process of your farmers’ market bouquet and cause the leaves and petals to start falling off more quickly.
According to Chang, however, you can still keep your fresh flowers in the kitchen. The gas disperses and loses its potency the further away from it you get. As long as you place your kitchen blooms as far away from those bananas as possible, they should be just fine.
There are also tons of hacks you might want to try to extend the lives of your flowers even further.
[Via mindbodygreen]
