Looking across my garden, our hydrangea bushes are a mass of rich colour and in full bloom, it won’t though be long before the temperature dips and they start to turn. Now is the perfect time to choose whether to cut and dry your blooms or leave them out for the winter and enjoy their shape and structure as the first frosts appear.

You only need a few hydrangea stems to create a beautiful, long lasting design. Paired with either fresh early autumn greenery or naturally dried foliage (eucalyptus, particularly cinerea is superb for this), your dried hydrangea stems will see you through a few weeks or months, providing plenty of beauty and impact. I have a large design, simply with a mass of dried hydrangea stems, sitting in a hallway alcove that I arranged this time last year, and it still looks great.

And once dried, the stems store well until you are ready to use them - see and read a little more below.

WHEN TO DRY

It is important the flower head is at the correct stage of maturity, to ensure they dry easily. When the interior of each flower (sepal) is no longer fertile, it opens fully, eventually browns and falls away. See image below. At any time from this point your hydrangea head will dry beautifully.

Some varieties are easier to dry - I recently found that Magic Candle Classic and Rubyred Classic were particularly easy to dry, even drying whilst sitting in vases of water over a few days. See image of table arrangement below.

BEST METHOD

If your stems haven’t naturally dried within an arrangement, simply suspend them upside down, in a cool to warm, dry spot, away from direct sunlight. The stem may dry overnight, or it could take a few days, depending on the atmosphere and humidity levels.

The flower head will last a long time, they are though delicate at this stage, so store with care. I tend to keep them standing upright in a vase - see image above - safely in a dry storage area or you could wrap carefully in Kraft paper and place into an air tight box.

Dried hydrangea heads are great in arrangements, particularly in designs where access to water is more difficult. The image below shows an doorway installation - I used a base of chickenwire to hold the stems, the greenery dried naturally within the warmth of the house and I added pre dried hydrangea stems to finish the design.

I would love to see your designs with dried hydrangea stems, please share them on Instagram by simply tagging me @philippacraddock

Philippa x