HYDRANGEA HAND TIE
THE MAKING OF A HAND TIED BUNCH & CARE GUIDES
Watch a quick 50 second video of the making of a hydrangea hand tie, behind the scenes, in my home studio. Plus a conditioning care guide for your hydrangea stems, including a great tip to help you revive prematurely wilted hydrangea.
I made this hand tie mid summer and used a mixture of tree foliage from our garden, with a few leftover stems from an earlier event, which included hydrangea, lilac, ammi visnaga and phlox, all loosely bound together with garden twine and wrapped in brown Kraft paper - and I gave it to a friend as a thank you.
Philippa x
QUICK HYDRANGEA HAND TIE (50 SECONDS)
LOOKING AFTER FRESH HYDRANGEA STEMS
A few conditioning tips to help keep your stems fresh and hydrated:
When hydrangea are in season, they can last for several weeks if conditioned well. Using a clean pair of scissors, simply cut the end of the stems at a sharp angle (which increases the surface area and water absorption) and place them into a clean vase/bucket of fresh tepid water. Let them rest overnight to drink plenty of water before you arrange the stems into designs. Once arranged, just keep an eye on their water level as they will drink plenty.
You will find some varieties of seasonal hydrangeas naturally dry whilst in water, just leave these in your design and afterwards keep them aside to reuse later.
An extra conditioning tip I have heard from others, is to place the base of the hydrangea stems into just boiled water (approx. 5cm deep), and once the water has cooled, top the bucket/vase with cool water - I haven’t found this to boost longevity, but do try it for yourself, as some swear by it.
REVIVING PREMATURELY WILTED HYDRANGEA
Sometimes you will have a fresh stem that lasts and lasts, sometimes a stem will dry the next day whilst still in water and sometimes, it can quickly wilt and loose all shape, seemingly for no reason. And this following trick will help you with the latter. It won’t work for every stem, but it is the best technique I have found for prematurely wilted hydrangea stems.
The story behind it, I was exhibiting at an autumn wedding fair which took place over three days; my designs included hydrangeas and I had brought spare for any that wilted. A hydrangea grower stopped by the stand to see my designs and she showed me this unique trick - using one of your scissor blades, carefully scoop out a small amount (1-3cm depth) of the white spongy pith, and place the stem back into water, this encourages more water absorption and helps to rehydrate (swipe to see next image). I tested it on all the hydrangea stems that had wilted, and the following morning about 70% of those came fully back to life - it was slightly magic, and I have been using the same technique ever since.
Another technique is to submerge the stems, including flower heads, fully in water (as their petals also absorb water) - this does work, but I don’t find it as effective, it’s a little cumbersome and it can cause the more delicate and paler petals to bruise.
video care guide
This video came from the filming of the 2021 Autumn Mini Course. It was edited out of the final cut, but it is helpful, so we still wanted to be able to share it and this page offered a perfect home!
We hope it is helpful, and offers further support to the above images.
