Put Hydrangeas In Water Immediately After Cutting
As soon as hydrangeas are cut, the stems should immediately be put into tepid water. And adding a little bit of flower food to it would be a great idea too.
You really want to make sure you are buying the freshest Hydrangeas available (1-3 days old) as they only tend to last 5-9 days depending on how you care for them.
Hydrangeas form a type of sap on the stems where they have been cut—and this can prevent a constant flow of water to the flowers and cause them to droop.
Have you ever cut hydrangea blooms and put them right into a vase of water only to have them wilt within an hour or two? This seems to be caused by a sticky substance that clogs the stems, preventing moisture from reaching the blooms. This does not happen every time.
A pH of 7 is neutral, and household vinegar has a pH of around 2.4 (which is quite acidic). The theory is, applying diluted vinegar to the soil will lower the pH enough to change the color of your hydrangea blooms. This strategy will make the soil more acidic, but not for long!
Spray: Once your hydrangeas are fully dried, spray them down with aerosol hairspray (sorry, aerosol spray just works better than the pump spray kind…it just does).
First, add a 1/4 cup of sugar to the room temperature water in the vase. The sugar helps feed the stems and increases the life of the cut flowers.
You want a flowering hydrangea that feels sturdy and not soft or spongy." If you choose a healthy bouquet, it should last up to two weeks.
The leaves start drooping and the stems aren't able to support the heavy flowerheads. Hydrangeas should be planted in moist, rich soil. In soil that drains quickly, such as sandy soil, wilting occurs much faster than in soil rich in organic matter with better water-holding ability. Shallow watering can also cause wilt.
You can use vinegar to lower the pH of your soil, but be aware that in order to achieve blue blooms, you will need both an acidic environment and aluminum ions. The acidic environment will also need to be a sustained over a period of time, which could be hard if rainwater is washing the vinegar away.
Hairspray to the rescue
In order to keep them around a little longer, many suggest using the hairspray trick. Start by cutting off the ends of each stem as you do with any floral arrangement — we suggest using Martha Stewart's technique for keeping Hydrangeas fresh.
Harden off a gift hydrangea by putting it in a cool place in your house, then outside on a porch once the possibility of a frost has passed, and finally planting once planting season had arrived. These plants will not blossom again the first season, but if they survive the winter, they may blossom the next season.
Homemade compost is a great source of slow release nutrients for hydrangeas. Either top dress the soil beneath your plants with your compost and water well or brew up a batch of compost tea and give your plants a deep drink of it. You can repeat your application of compost tea in 2 to 3 weeks.
By altering the soil pH with vinegar, you can actually turn your pink-flowering hydrangeas blue! For this trick, simply dilute your vinegar in water before pouring it around the base of your hydrangeas, and within just a few weeks you could have fresh and bountiful blue blooms.
If you're growing hydrangeas, use coffee grounds to affect their color. Coffee grounds add extra acidity to the soil around hydrangeas. On a chemical level, this increased acidity makes it easier for the plant to absorb naturally occurring aluminum in the dirt. The effect is pretty blue clusters of flowers.
Hydrangeas produce a “sap” that clogs their stems and blocks water from traveling up it to those gorgeous blooms. The boiling water helps to do away with the sap.
Treating Slugs on Hydrangeas
You can spray the plants with soapy water. Use a teaspoon of dawn or joy dish soap with a quart of water in a spray bottle. Spray the leaves, branches and the ground beneath the plant.
Pickle juice is mostly composed of vinegar, which can help to lower the pH of the soil and make it more acidic, which can be great for plants like Hydrangea, Gardenia, Camellia, Azalea, Begonia, Impatiens, Rhododendron, Blueberry, Potentilla, Heather, Vinca, Clematis, Fuchsia, and Astilbe.
Trim an inch off the ends of the stems and submerge wilted flowers in a bucket, bowl or sink filled with cool water. If you're trying to revive multiple stems at once, weigh down the stems in the water with a lightweight plate so they stay completely submerged.
"Oakleaf and Limelight hydrangeas with their cone shapes lend themself to linear vases like a tall cylinder. More traditional hydrangeas do very well in a compote or a bowl." Lee suggests using vases that do not require foam as hydrangeas are thirsty and "like a good drink." Instead, place them directly in water.
Leave the bouquets in water until an hour before the wedding. This process should keep the hydrangeas well hydrated for the wedding and alleviate any wilting issues. Some designers use hydrangeas in floral foam when creating wedding flower arrangements or bouquets.