The Secret to Long-Lasting Hydrangeas
This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission.
How to keep cut hydrangeas from wilting-the simple florist’s trick that can prevent and reverse wilting in hydrangea bouquets!
I love hydrangeas. Seriously, LOVE them. The first thing I did last year when we moved in our house was plant five hydrangea bushes so I could have my own. They haven’t bloomed yet this year but I was super excited to see cut hydrangeas in my grocery store last week and snapped some up for my kitchen table.
How to Keep Hydrangeas from Wilting
Keeping cut hydrangeas used to be hit or miss for me-they’d either do great or wilt almost immediately in the vase. I didn’t know what was causing it or how to prevent it until I was given a helpful tip from the flower vendor at our local farmer’s market last year.
She told me that sometimes when you cut hydrangeas they form a sticky substance over the cut that prevents the flower from sucking water up through the stem (that’s scientific terminology by the way, “sticky stuff” and “sucking water up,” can’t tell I was a Bio major can you?)
To prevent that “sticky stuff” from forming you need the secret ingredient-alum! (A common ingredient used for pickling, find it in the spice aisle.)
When you are arranging your hydrangeas re-cut the stem about an inch above the previous cut and immediately stick the bottom 1/2″ of the stem in the alum to coat it, then arrange as usual. It’s easy and works! No more wilted hydrangea blooms!
Repeat the process any time you see them beginning to wilt and you can keep the hydrangeas from wilting for weeks!
Do you love hydrangeas as much as I do? What are your favorite flowers?
Be sure to check out these other flower posts:
Thanks for this tip. I love hydrangeas too!
That is such a cool tip! Hydrangeas are some of my favorite flowers (love all the colors!) but my luck is about 50/50 with keeping them looking good for longer than a day or so. So I’m definitely trying this next time! Also, pinning this and sharing it on my Facebook page this week! Thanks so much for linking it up to my party!
I LOVE hydrangeas… we have 2 bushes that I think my hubby killed. 🙁 I have a black thumb, so I can’t pass judgment, although I know enough not to mess with the landscaping lol. I think he was trying to trim them to make them fuller or something, I have no idea. But its been 2 years and I don’t think they’re coming back, at least not to the full potential they could be. I am deeply saddened!
Wow! Who would have known?! I love these flowers too – so beautiful. I’ll have to pass this tip on to my sis-in-law who loves them too!
Is there an easy way to propagate hydrangeas? Purty Pleeze. Thank you.
I wish I knew Josephine but I’ve bought all mine at the garden center.
You can propagate Hydrangeas by putting a stem from a plant down to the ground put a little soil on it and a rock over it and it will root in about a month or two. Then cut it off from the mother plant and you will have a new plant!
Great tip Patricia, thanks so much! ~Melissa
U tube has a lot of great videos on how to propagate hydrangeas.
Yes cut the stems that don’t have flowers. Pull off the leaves at bottom of stem wet and put rooting powder on. Plant in potting soil and put a top of a cut soda bottle over plant to create a greenhouse. Make sure they get water and in two or three months they should be ready to transplant . Waren
My husband just sticks a cutting in the ground and keeps it watered. Presto! A new plant!
I love my hydrangeas, but they don’t keep long once cut. I am going to give your tip a try.
Thanks for sharing,
Suzanne
Pieced Pastimes
I hope it helps! Thanks for stopping by!
when I cut my hydrangeas, I make sure the bush has been watered very well the day before I cut. I cut them early in the morning before it gets hot. I go out with a bucket of clean icy water to put them in as soon as they are cut from the bush. If you cut your branch to a section of the stem that is brown and woody, instead of green, make a vertical cut up the center of the stem. Then I take them to my coolest darkest room and let them sit for a couple of hours or so before showing them off. I have put them in my fridge too. icy water works just as well. If I do have the occasional bloom to wilt, I just take those out, hang them upside down to dry for a wreath or arrangement. The old fashioned hydrangeas will be blue if your soil is acidic and pinkish if your soil is alkaline. add lime for pink, and Mir acid for the blue.
Thanks for the tips!! I love learning about hydrangeas!
(Forgot to check for replies). Needed to write something else to check the box below.
I just did this. I cut a flower off my hrdrangea plant, stuck the end of the stem into alum, stuck it in the vase and saw the alum fall off to the bottom of the water. Is that supposed to happen?
Yes! That’s okay, it’s just that initial coating immediately after you cut it that does the trick!
I have 2 hydrangea plants that are beautiful – green and lush leaves..but have not bloomed AT ALL for 3 years. Any udea how to get them bloiming? I’d aporeciate any tips!
It may be the zone you live in and the type of hydrangea you have. I live in zone 5 and here some varieties are hardy enough to live though the winter but their flower buds are not. Hydrangeas produce the bud before winter and bloom the following year. They are like lilacs and weigelias. That’s also the reason you have to prune them immediately after blooming. Otherwise you cut off the buds that produce the flower for the following year. Check with your county extension office for more information on your zone and to try to identify your type of hydrangea (unless you still have the tag from when you bought it)
Thank you for teaching old dog new tricks. Now if I can keep my poinsettias from wilting and kicking the bucket in couple of weeks.
Thanks for a great tip. I have alum already. I will be putting this idea to use.
Glad it can help! I was so thankful when I was given the tip too!
hydrangeas like to be well watered, kept cool (hence they wilt VERY easily in the hot summer months when cut), with partial sun (usually do well in semi shady places when planting)…. i usually stick mine in the fridge if they start to wilt and check the stems. Alum is something that is used in the pickling process so it would make sense that they help preserve flowers 🙂 thanks for the tip!
also, changing the acidity/pH levels of the soil can also change the colors you have…my grandma always used her leftover coffee grounds to do this.
Great tips Jamie, thanks!
Will this work for all flowers or hydrangeas only? I loove peonies and mine are blooming now, I might try it!
I’m not sure Marie, if you try it let me know how it goes! I’m totally jealous of your peonies!
As a apprentice florist many many years ago we always did the hot water treatment after we bashed the hydrangeas and also put the dahlias in hot water for 30 sec. I think we did it for scabioas as well love all the other hints
Great tip Carmel, thank you!!
They are my very favorite flower, I grew up with beauties on Tybee Island GA. Thanks for this info, I never knew, I do remember my Grandmother poured beer on them and they turned the most beautiful colors.
Cool tip! I’ll have to try that and see how it works, thanks!
? beer! Really? Any particular kind of beer?
This could not have come at a better time…just bought hydrangeas! Perfect tip…pinned!!!
Thanks Jessica, don’t you love the spring flowers everywhere finally?!
woah, i had no clue. i need all the gardening tips i can get! i am currently trying to keep the herbs i just planted 3 days ago from dying. lol!
I’m smitten with hydrangeas! They are such a gorgeous flower…
Thanks for the tip, girlie! I will so have to remember this one.
Oooo, one of my favorite flowers! Totally pinned this tip for when the hubby brings me hydrangeas!!
I love them too!!!!!! Just planted 3 more and thank you for the tip about the Alum!!
Oh fun! I’m resisting buying any more this year but hoping the ones I put in last year get a lot bigger, I’m so excited for them to start blooming!
I have not had blooms for 2 years HELP
Don’t cut back in the winter. They bloom from the old shoots from the previous year. It looks like dead sticks, but don’t cut them off.
Great tip Lisa, we recently sold our old house and I realized our renters had mowed right over the ones we put it last winter-it was so sad!
Where do you live Lisa? It’s true some bloom on old wood but not all of them.. I live where the buds on old wood freezes and they won’t bloom then. Still haven’t figured out how to protect them over winter as they get 4-5 feet high. Anyone have a solution for my problem?
Any ideas on how to keep them from wilting in a Bridal bouquet? My niece wants them and I’m terrified! Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Marsha, I would be really nervous to try this with a wedding without doing at least a few practice run throughs, hydrangeas can be so finicky and quick to wilt. I might also have an artificial backup on standby. I’m sorry not to be more help, when I made my stepsister’s bouquet I used artificial for this reason.
I love them too, but unfortunately mine got run over w/ the mower when my neighbor mowed for me. First he forgot to water my bamboo and it died, now it’s the hydrangeas. I can’t say anything though, as he was doing me a favor and forgot that is where we planted a couple last year. Oh well….
There’s always this year Terri!
Got a neighbor like that my answer big rocks around stuff I want to keep!
Well if your bamboo died, you may want to rent him out…lol.
I can’t get them to grow in flower in kansas. Is it the soil, heard need acid soil. I’m not a good Gardner and I love flowers ..
Put coffee grounds around the base and water
I’ve never tried the alum, but I have always mashed the cut ends, it helps suck up water.
Great tip Rhoni! Thanks!
OH MY GOODNESS… I am a 67 year old grandma and have never known how to keep cut hydrangeas! And 90% of the time they just wilt! GOD BLESS YOU MELISSA…. My 36 year old daughter is getting married the end of June…. we might just have to use this to help us decorate! WOW….. I hope to stumble upon more suggestions like yours!! Have a wonderufl and very beautiful summer…. a lot more of us will because of you!
This is one ole Norwegian MorMor that is happier! Claudia Jacobson
Yay!!! I’m so so glad it helped Claudia! Sometimes if it doesn’t work the first time you can do it again also so don’t give up if they try to wilt anyways, usually you can recover them!
No way!!!!! Just added alum to the grocery list for this week. I’ve always wondered why sometimes they stay poofy and dry out nicely and other times they just flop. Now I know! I think you just changed my life!
OMG I often wondered why I couldn’t keep them for more than a couple days! Me and my 40 hydrangea Thank you!
Hello, what a wonderful answer to a miserable situation. I grow huuuuge hydrangeas and each time I cut some….disaster! Thanks to all of you, I’m off to cut some for my table….
I have another tip that I found online. If your hydrangeas start to droop, boil 3-4 inches of water, recut the flower stem and put the flower into the hot water-they rehydrate and I’ve even had it work on the same flower multiple times!
Great tip Suzi, thanks!! I’ll be sure to try that!
Also you can soak and submersible the entire stem in water to rehydrate if they wilt. Been doing it for years and years as a special event florist.
Can you eventually dry them this way?
Wendy Is that the bloom & all in cold water? The entire stem and flower head? Submerge in cold h20?
I have seen florist submerge the entire bloom and stem in a bathtub for 30-45 minutes and it perks them back up!
I’ll have to try that!
How long do you keep stem in boiling water cup?
As a Florist of 35 + years..just immerse the entire stem to rehydrate them. It could take a couple of hours. If too far gone though, there is no rescuing it. L Boiling water, if not done correctly will not have your desired effect. Also always use alum. ?
Brenna can you tell me- once I pick up my order of hydrangeas- what do you recommend to do? I am nervous about the hydrangeas. Have an event I’m doing in Atlanta, picking up flowers Thursday and event is Saturday. Hydrangea will be in Mason jars. Can you tell me what steps you take to cut and care for them. And do you recommend designing them day of event or can I do it Thursday? (They will not be kept in a floral cooler either) I REALLY appreciate your help.
We have done that for years. I also lightly crush the stem.
I have never heard of using Alum but will try that.
where do you buy ALUM which part of the grocery store
Hi Sandra, I’m not sure I ever bought alum in England when we lived there but it should be in the spice aisle. (I was so confused the year we were there because so many things had different names!) The chemical name is Potassium Aluminum Sulfate and it’s used in the pickling process here in the US. Hope that helps a little! ~Melissa
How do I dry hydrangeas?
Haven’t tried it myself but my friend told me to place it in water and leave in a dark room like a basement and never allow the water to dry… And the hydrangeas will dry beautifully and last a long time