Hydrangeas are so beautiful in arrangements, so it’s a shame they don’t last long as cut flowers. In the early stages of planning my wedding, I considered using hydrangeas. I’m so glad I didn’t.
Still, I just couldn’t resist some gorgeous blue hydrangeas at the supermarket yesterday. They were so perfect with the beautiful, very healthy sunflowers they had there. Add in some salmon-colored carnations, and the little bit of purple statice I already had at home from another otherwise wilted arrangement, and I had such a joyful mix of colors and textures.
Seeing how wilted my hydrangeas were this morning was disappointing, but this floral arrangement was bringing me too much joy to give up on it just yet. I found some advice on extending the life of cut hydrangeas from a florist’s web site, Kay’s Flower School. They were already very wilted, so it was too late for preventative measures. I followed her advice on reviving rapidly-wilting hydrangeas. Dunk the entire flower head in a bowl of room temperature water–they drink from the flower heads.
Here they are mostly, but not completely, submerged. I decided to stand them up and lean the stems into the rest of the flower arrangement next to them, like so:
Another site, Associated Cut Flower Company, recommends leaving them in the water for 20-30 minutes. I ended up leaving them in there for about 35 minutes.
The results were very minimal at first. They were still quite wilted. I wasn’t sure if I’d see much improvement, but I decided to wait and see. I’m glad I did! After about 10 or 15 minutes, they perked up dramatically.
Before
After
They weren’t as good as new, but much improved from the soak. I’ll spritz the heads with water and get another day or two out of them.
Be sure to place a towel underneath the vase once you’ve returned the flowers after soaking, because they will be dripping water.
I’m really enjoying the colors this adds to our home. These flowers are a great way to celebrate the beauties of summer as they give way to fall.
Something So Small 