How to Dry Hydrangea Flowers
How to Dry Hydrangea Flowers
Expert Village
Drying hydrangea flowers is best done in a paper bag, followed by a mist of hair or body spray and a dusting of body glitter. Dry hydrangea flowers with tips from a professional gardener in this free video on gardening.
Expert: Yolonda Vanveen
Yolanda Vanveen is a third generation flower grower and sustainable gardener who lives in Kalama, Wash. She is the owner of VanveenBulbs.com, selling flower bulbs on the internet, at garden shows and at farmers markets in the Pacific Northwest for nearly 20 years. Vanveen holds a BA in communications and international studies from Linfield College and is a graduate of the WSU Master Gardener Program. Vanveen represented the United States at the 2006 Indigenous Bulb Society Symposium in South Africa and has been featured on the PBS show, Smart Gardening, demonstrating which way is up with flower bulbs.
Video Transcript
How to Dry Hydrangea Flowers
Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen from vanveenbulbs.com. Next we're going to learn all about how to dry hydrangeas. We have these beautiful plants in our yards and they bloom and then the blooms start to fade and we want to save them because they're so beautiful. And they're so beautiful in Fall arrangements as well. So let's learn how to save our hydrangea and how to cut hydrangea and how to dry hydrangea. Okay so these hydrangeas are pretty much done blooming and they've already lost a lot of their color. It's almost better to cut them when they're more at the color stage. So like this one is still pretty pink so it's beautiful. It's that gorgeous pink color. So I'm really not going to do anything to that except I'm going to put it in a paper bag and that way it'll dry and it'll probably keep a lot of its color. But even the hydrangeas that have lost their color and they don't have a lot of color to them, but they still look pretty good. So I'll just cut it. And there's a lot of things that you can do to actually make them last longer when they are dried and to spruce them up a bit to make them a little more exciting for your Fall bouquets. Because even a couple of these dried in a little vase, or put it in with a wreath or with some dried roses, they're just gorgeous and they last so long as a dried flowers. I just love them. A trick that I've found that you can do to make them last even longer is when they're done drying or even as soon as you cut them before they dry, I find is a really good time, I use any kind of a hair gel or a hair spritzer. Not anything that is aerosol, but any kind of thing, a pump, and then I'll just pump it. And you can pretty much do it with anything. This is actually body mist, but it's got a lot of alcohol in it and I found a lot of kind of a shiny gel to it too. So pretty much anything. And what happens is it keeps it from falling apart. So a lot of times hair spritzer works really well or hair gel or anything that you can spray on it. But look it right there just that gloss makes everything look a little better. And before I'm even drying it I'm doing this. You can do it when it's dry too. And then I love body sparkles and I love any kind of sparkles. And I love it on my flowers too. Especially my dried flowers. So these are actually just body sparkles, and I've put them in a little bowl. And so what I'm doing is I'm just going to take my little hydrangea, I'm going to mix it around in there, and once it's done it'll dry and it'll be covered with sparkles. So when I put that even in a Christmas wreath or my Thanksgiving wreath or even like I said with some dry roses, it just makes it look good for a lot longer. And the best part is you don't always see the sparkles, but when the sun just comes in in a certain angle or at night when you turn a candle on, it just sparkles a little more and it just makes it more beautiful and it seems to last longer. So it's an easy way that you can get your hydrangeas to dry and last a lot longer. So once I spray them and I put some sparkles on them, you don't even have to do that. You can just throw them right into a paper bag as I did with the pink one. I just throw it right into a paper bag. And I don't pretty much do anything to it. I just leave it. And I might check on it once or twice a week. Maybe move them around. Make sure they're not touching each other. Another easy way to dry them is just put like on a cardboard box or in a cardboard box. And I just check on them here and there. But again notice, just this pink one by itself it's gorgeous. It's a really pretty hydrangea. But if I spray just a little bit of spray on it, it just seems to shine and I know it'll last longer and keep its color better. So in about a month or two I can check, keep checking on them or use them whenever I want or I can even leave them fresh and put them into arrangements and let them dry as they are. There's really no wrong way to dry hydrangeas as long as they don't stay too wet, so they won't dry if they're wet, they'll pretty much do really well. And you don't want to smash them, you want to try to give them their shape. So you want to make sure that they're standing up straight. But they're just a beautiful, beautiful fresh plant and dry plant and a plant that you can enjoy for many, many years.
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