Hydrangea Harvesting

Before the frost...

I’ve just done a mass binning of all my dried hydrangeas. It feels a bit bare and a bit sad but they’ve been around for three or so years and probably actually peaked about six months ago. If you love a hydrangea and want to dry some, now is the time; they want picking before the frost arrives and turns them brown.

I do very little to them, nothing fancy; just pick them and put them in a vase of water like a normal cut flower. I actually find, they’re so late in their season now that you can just pick them and they’ll happily dry without even putting in water. The only thing to remember is to keep them somewhere dry. One year, I’d done a big raid at my parents home in Wales one October half term, left them outside - undercover but open to the atmosphere - and they turned instantly brown. I lost the whole lot. So keep them dry is the only rule!