Keeping Snapdragons Straight

I struggled for a long time to keep snapdragon stems straight while conditioning them. I tried wrapping in brown paper, but that was fiddly and I found it could squash some of the blooms. I think tried covering the windows, in the room where I condition my flowers, with sheets of brown cardboard, but no matter how hard I tried the snapdragons would find the tiniest chink of light and twist towards it.

In a flash of inspiration I took one of the cardboard window covers and bent it into a tube around the top of the bucket. I support is with short sticks poked into the side.

It worked perfectly. It also works with bendy delphinium and gladioli stems. I am hoping that it will also work with my wayward tulips next May.