Retro remedies - do they really work?

Flower power

Make cut flowers last longer by putting sugar, bleach or aspirin in the water. Or stand them in fizzy lemonade?

GHI VERDICT Lemonade lasts longest. We tested each of these folk remedies, with a stem each of roses, carnations and freesias in separate vases. We also used plain water and water with flower food dissolved in it as a comparison. The first to wilt, after four days, were the flowers in water with half an aspirin dissolved in it, followed closely by those in a sugar solution and those in plain water. The flowers with a few drops of bleach in the water wilted next. Lemonade proved the most effective fix, lasting six days, but flower food was the only method that kept our blooms going for a week.