How to dry hydrangeas
One trick to making your staging attractive is to add flowers. However once your garden stops producing fresh blooms, you need to either purchase store bought flowers or go without. Here's a little trick that will have you in blooms all year long.
One of my favorite seasons is fall. And one reason is because of the amazing yield that can be had by one hydrangea bush. Hydrangeas bloom all summer, however fall does something special to these guys.
I can't take credit for inventing this tip. The V Spot shared her wisdom, saving me from being continually frustrated as to why sometimes they'd wither and sometimes they'd stay looking like the day I picked them.
I'm glad she explained it, because now we ALL can have beautiful hydrangeas within our reach any time of year!
How to dry hydrangeas
1. Pick hydrangeas in the fall. Leave the blooms intact on the bush until the blooms start to go slightly crispy and some even brown. You want most of the moisture out of the petals... this is key.
Tip: If you pick your hydrangeas in summer, they're generally one color. Wait until fall and you end up with an amazing rainbow of soft hues. The above yield was from one bush!
2. Cut the stems as long as you can so you have more variation with them later.
3. Leave them in water until they completely dry.
May as well make that drying time pretty. :)
I love how the sun came out right at this time, casting beautiful late afternoon highlights.
Free flowers to play with for the rest of the year - priceless.
Literally.
Do you dry flowers? Which ones? Any tips?
Do you dry flowers? Which ones? Any tips?
Gorgeous. This is how I do it as well. I so some blue ones in the summer too though.
ReplyDeleteWow! Incredible colors. I never knew what fall did to these.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! And the writer is an absolute sweetheart!! I've been following her blog for quite some time!! :)
ReplyDeleteZinnias, roses and dahlias also dry well. Just remove the water from your vase of cut flowers and let them dry. You can wrap a rubber band or pretty ribbon around the stems and hang them upside down to keep blossoms from drooping. I still have some of last summer's blooms in a vase. And hydrangea blossoms I clipped four summers ago.
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