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How to Cut Hydrangeas for Vases and Floral Arrangements
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Susan Martin
Hydrangeas are one of the most loved landscape plants, adored for their gorgeous summertime blooms. They are also popular flowers for bridal bouquets and fresh cut arrangements in season. The cut stems can get pricey if you purchase them from a florist, so why not grow your own? Below, we show you how to cut hydrangeas for vases and floral arrangements.
The Best Time to Cut Hydrangea Stems
Like all cut flowers, it’s best to do your cutting early in the morning before the day’s heat sets in. Hot afternoon sun tends to make flowers wilt, and you want them to be perky and fresh when it’s time to make your bouquet. Bring a bucket filled with a few inches of room temperature water out with you into the garden along with a clean, sharp pair of scissors or pruners. When you make your cuts, make them on an angle and plunge the stems immediately into the water.
What to Look for When Cutting Hydrangea Stems
When deciding which hydrangea flowers to select for cutting on the plant, look for those which have all of their florets fully open already. This is very different from other kinds of flowers, like roses, which are typically cut in bud form. Hydrangea blooms that are fully open and just about to transition to their papery-textured stage last the longest in bouquets.
Which Hydrangeas Are Safe for Cutting Without Sacrificing Next Year’s Blooms?
This is a serious question to consider from the very beginning – even when you are deciding which kinds of hydrangeas to grow in your garden. The best, worry-free cut hydrangea flowers are those that bloom on new wood. All types of smooth and panicle hydrangeas bloom on new wood and therefore are great candidates for cutting. Strong reblooming varieties of bigleaf and mountain hydrangeas also make good cut flowers.
Smooth and panicle hydrangea flowers can be cut anytime without sacrificing next year’s blooms. Reblooming bigleaf and mountain hydrangea flowers need to be cut at their peak blooming season before the next round of buds starts forming on the stems in order to prevent sacrificing the next blooms. However, if you aren’t worried about a few stems of the plant potentially not blooming next year, go ahead and cut them anytime you’d like.
Best Choices for Hydrangea Cut Flowers
We mentioned that all smooth and panicle hydrangeas, as well as strong reblooming bigleaf and mountain hydrangeas work well as cut flowers. If we could only pick three, here are the ones we would pick.
Best Smooth Hydrangea for Cutting – Incrediball® Hydrangea arborescens
With huge, pure white, mophead blooms that age to jade green, Incrediball hydrangeas make stunning additions to both fresh and dried bouquets. Each sizable plant produces dozens of blooms, so you won’t even notice where you’ve clipped a few for your bouquet. Hardy in zones 3-8, grows 4-5’ tall and wide, full sun to part shade.
Try also: Incrediball® Blush and Invincibelle Sublime™
Best Panicle Hydrangea for Cutting – Fire Light® Hydrangea paniculata
We love the huge, conical blooms and strong stems of this panicle hydrangea – two traits that make it an outstanding cut flower. Cut the blooms in their pure white stage or wait for them to take on raspberry pink tones in late summer or fall. Either way, they will stay the color you picked them for your fresh or dried bouquets. Hardy in zones 3-8, grows 4-6’ tall and wide, full sun to part shade.
Try also: Limelight Prime® and Quick Fire Fab®
Best Reblooming Bigleaf/Mountain Hydrangea for Cutting – Let’s Dance® ¡Arriba! Hydrangea macrophylla x serrata
This hydrangea’s quickness to rebloom earns it top marks for use as a cut flower. Clip a few of the early summer blooms that appear on old wood, then clip more in midsummer and late summer as the plant continues to send up new flowers all summer. Once you see the tiny little buds forming in the leaf axils late in the summer, stop cutting – those are next year’s blooms setting in. Hardy in zones 5-9, grows 2-3’ tall and wide, full sun to part shade.
Try also: Let’s Dance Sky View® and Let’s Dance Can Do!®
How to Keep Cut Hydrangeas from Wilting
Have you ever cut some hydrangeas stems from your garden only to have them wilt in a day? That happens because some hydrangeas exude a sticky sap in their stems when they are injured or cut. This sap prevents water from getting up into the flowers, so they wilt as if they weren’t in water at all.
There are two good ways to combat the sticky sap issue so your hydrangeas flowers will last much longer – typically 5-8 days – in fresh bouquets.
Boiling Water Method – It’s time to fire up your stove when you are ready to prep your cut hydrangea flowers for the vase. Bring an inch or two of water to a soft boil in a pot. Take your cut hydrangea stem out of your bucket of water and recut the stem on an angle. Immediately dip the bottom inch or two of the stem into the boiling water and hold it there for 15 to 30 seconds. The boiling water breaks down the sticky sap so it can’t clog the stem. Stick the stem immediately into a vase filled with room temperature water after its boiling water plunge and expect it to last much longer as a result.
Alum Powder Method – An easier method, and one that should work about as well as boiling water, is using alum powder. You’ll find it in the spice or canning aisle of your local grocery store as it is used in pickling to extend the life and flavor of certain foods. Since it is slightly acidic, it helps to prevent algae from forming and prevents hydrangea stems from clogging with sap. Simply dip the cut stems in alum powder before sticking them in your vase.
Want to perk up your hydrangea stems after a few days in the vase? Change out the water, wash the vase, and repeat one of the preserving methods described above to get a few more days out of your cut hydrangeas.
Read more about hydrangea care from Garden Crossings.
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2 thoughts on “How to Cut Hydrangeas for Vases and Floral Arrangements”
My oak leaf’s flowers go from white to pink to brown very quickly. The brown hang on for a long time into winter. Should I just cut them off?
You can trim the blooms in the fall or leaves them for winter interest and trim the spent blooms early spring.