How long does it take for a flower to open? How can I speed up the process?

Question

We're doing some timelapse photography of flowers opening and, not knowing anything about flowers, figured maybe you could help us out. Any recommendations on which flowers open quickest, how long it takes, and how I can accelerate the process?

Thanks for the thoughtful answer, Iva. I'm in NYC; was thinking of just going and buying some cut flowers at in the flower district a few blocks away.

So if I put a grow light on it, some warm water in the vase, i might get lucky and things could happen in an hour?

Answer 1

flowers open by warm tempertaure and by light, mostly

well, in that case i would recommend to take a flower that close overnight or when the weather looks llike rain, collect them when they close, (you can store them in fridge in a plastic bag with a piece of wet tissiue). then put in warm room, check how long it will take to open. then do it one more time with the camera. it shoul be definitely less than one hour. i do nt know where you are from so i cannot suggest any wild species, but how about tulips. or if ou want the young bud to open completely from young bud, then definitely poppy, any kind of poppy, the effect is magnificent, but it will take longer than if it is opening of a mature flower that has closed. apart from flowers, you can experiment with pollen dehiscense - you can take flowers that are open, but dont shed pollen yet (the pollen sacks are still closed), put in vase and wait for pollen to start spouting out. where are you from??

so the easiest: i suggest early at dawn , go out and pluck closed flowers at random. put in vase in WARM room, wait for some change, start the camera. OK? i think that the heat of the light will help a lot, too. good luck if it does not work, pluck the same flowers while they are open, put in fridge to make them close, then put back in warm room to open. this simply must work.

there are some flowers that open at night or at noon, but as you say that you "dont know anything about flowers" and you want to speed the opening, i suggest you simply look out for mature flovers that close for just any reason, rather then trying to decide on some species and then trying to find them or buy them.

Answer 2

It depends on what kind of flower you have. A night-blooming cereus can open in one or two minutes but a rose will take a couple of days. Buy a bouquet of the flower you are going to use, put it in a vase with water, and time it opening. THEN get your camera out and do it again to a second flower.

Answer 3

Place the flowers between sheets of paper and pile books on top. You'll have wait about a week or so. This only works with flowers that don't change colour when they're dry. Frangipani for instance turn brown after they've been pressed. This method doesn't work really well with very large flowers since if there's too much moisture they will turn moldy, ruinning your flowrs as well as staining your book. This work with leaves as well.

Answer 4

Daylilies, morning glories, moonflowers, squash blossoms, water lillies and hibiscus open pretty quickly. These are probably your best bets as they photograph really well, in addition to opening over the course of mere hours rather than days...

There are many tips to getting them to open, used by contestants in flower shows. Unfortunately, they guard these secrets well.
Two tips that will help are:
1) Use a high sugar flower food to make blooms open faster. One cheap solution for this is to use UN-colored hummingbird food in water. Another is to use the UN-cola--that lemony-lime bubbly stuff loaded with sugar? hint hint ;)
2) Use a heat source such as a lamp or blowdryer to heat buds. Be careful with this one--some plants might not appreciate it!

Good luck!

Answer 5

chemicals and controlling the amount of hours a day it gets light

Answer 6

Talk to it, lovingly