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Every Sukkot any aravot that I start the holiday with tend to get dried up by the end of the holiday, if not to the point of being unfit for service, at least enough to be ugly. What do you do to maximize the amount of time your aravot stay fresh?

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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it gives no indication that it is looking for any information such as halakha that pertain to Judaism. It seems to just be about maintaining plants, and is thus off topic.
    – mevaqesh
    Jul 19, 2016 at 0:04
  • @mevaqesh, per many answers to this Meta question questions about implementing Judaism are on-topic. How to maintain a aravot for use on Sukkot is a problem disticnt to Judaism.
    – Isaac Moses ♦
    Jul 19, 2016 at 1:35
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    @IsaacMoses That is not a good summary of the answers there. The top voted answer actually recommends the test of "Does it matter whether this is Jewish?" which this question seems to fail, there being no indication that migrating the question to gardening.se wouldn't be equally if not more effective for the OP.
    – Double AA ♦
    Jul 21, 2016 at 3:28
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    @IsaacMoses Were this question well posed it would directly identify said concerns, and hence be equally if not better answerable at gardening.se. Telling me that by knowing your audience you were able to avoid specifying the rhythm and that makes this question more Jewish is silly.
    – Double AA ♦
    Jul 21, 2016 at 3:43
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    @IsaacMoses That's using the test in your answer, not the top voted one.
    – Double AA ♦
    Jul 21, 2016 at 3:57

8 Answers 8

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keep them in the fridge. this also helps to prevent mold growing on the lulav holder, and doesn't take hardly any effort, like many complicated wet paper towel/Al foil things

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I've tried the paper towel/aluminum foil (my father's method) idea, keeping them in the fridge, and keeping them in water. One year I got a whole lot of them and experimented with around seven different methods for each pair, to see at the end of the week which method would be the best.

The winner (and what I've been doing every year since then): wet them just a bit, and put them in an air-tight wrapping like saran wrap or plastic wrap, then keep them in the fridge. A bit involved but it works very well

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    Please tell me you designated one set for each day so you could have Hanaah from the others on the other days!
    – Double AA ♦
    Oct 7, 2014 at 4:25
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    You get the The Science award!
    – Isaac Moses ♦
    Oct 7, 2014 at 4:33
  • @DoubleAA actually no, but I can't really imagine why I would want to get hanaah from aravos... they don't smell nice or taste good
    – הנער הזה
    Oct 7, 2014 at 4:54
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    @Matt Awww it would have been worth it just to say you did.
    – Double AA ♦
    Oct 7, 2014 at 4:56
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Buy an extra set or two. the cost is trivial compared to the hiddur of a $50 etrog.

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Plant them near your residence (after "rooting" them in a vase) so next year you can pick new ones as needed.

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  • No!!! Don't plant Aravos in your yard! Unless you enjoy having a gigantic monstrosity that can't be killed and only grows back bigger and fuller every time you chop it down. The Aravos that do grow are never good quality in any case.
    – user6591
    Oct 2, 2017 at 16:49
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If you live in a more arid and hot climate, like southern California, put a few drops of water in the lulav bag. When you walk out in the street, the heat of the day causes the water to evaporate, but because the bag is closed, it has nowhere to go. this disperses the water around the whole bag, and keeps the everything moist. Kind of like a mini greenhouse.

As I found out this year, however, this does not work in a more humid environment. It just makes everything soggy and moldy.

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I was just referred to "How to keep your aravos fresh throughout sukkos: The definitive guide for frustrated palm-frond wavers", an apparently anonymous document describing a series of nine experiments, carefully testing different strategies for keeping Aravot fresh. Read the whole thing to see all of the strategies tested and all of the results, including photos. Here are some highlights:

  • Just leaving them alone kept them pretty much OK for a few days, but then, they dried out.

  • Wrapping in moist paper towel and foil kept them from drying, but ultimately turned them yellow.

  • Wrapping them along with the lulav caused rotting.

  • Standing them in an inch of water was effective, but may be Halachically problematic on Yom Tov.

  • Other than that, best results were achieved by keeping them, by themselves, in an airtight plastic lulav bag. They stayed fresh through the holiday, and only yellowed a little.

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My father's solution: put them inside a moist paper towel, inside aluminum foil. After using them, leave them in the fridge, until you need them the next day.

You might also consider replacing them half-way through, which is cheap if you buy them, free if you grow your own (which I do ;).

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I was in a shul hoshana raba one year and after davening a guy showed everyone his aravos and they were fresh like they were just picked. He said all you need to do is put a little water in the bottom of an aravos bag, enough just to cover the bottom of the bag probably. A teaspoon. And place them in the bag in the fridge. I've used this method since and it has always worked!

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    Welcome to Mi Yodeya Michael! Thanks for the answer.
    – Joel K
    Oct 2, 2017 at 12:06
  • Standing or lying down?
    – user6591
    Oct 2, 2017 at 16:50

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