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We love: dried hydrangea heads

Posted:30 November 2014

Allowing hydrangea flowers to dry on the shrub enhances the garden for a month or two – then if you catch them in time, the dried heads can be cut and brought indoors and gilded for Christmas decoration or wreath making.

Hydrangeas are popular garden shrubs and come in many forms. Their delicate heads of flowers in shades of pink, white or blue turn over the autumn months taking on pretty autumn colours and highly structural shapes.

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Mophead and lacecap cultivars of Hydrangea macrophylla are easy to recognize as these are the ones whose flowers colour changes with the soil pH: blue in acid soil, pink in alkaline. Colour changes can also be seen in flowers of other types such as H. involucrata and H. serrate.

Some hydrangeas have flowers that turn muted shades of cream and pale green, as well as burgundy, brown and bronze. Hydrangea Annabelle’ for example usually ages to a cool lime green color, while the flowers of Hydrangea anomala subsp. Petiolaris dry to a crisp dark brown/bronze.

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For indoor floral displays and decoration the trick is getting the timing right If you cut them in peak bloom, they have too much moisture and don’t dry quickly enough to retain their beauty, and if cut too late in the season or after heavy rainfall, they’ll turn brown and mouldy. So keep an eye on them through September, October and November  to catch them just in time.

Hydrangeas are one of those flowers that almost dry themselves, and once dry, they can last and look beautiful for years. To help them along, hang upside down for a few days in a utility room, then spray with gold or silver, frost with glitter, or just leave au naturalle for a softly opulent look!

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