How to dry hydrangeas + slowing your roll

 

The North side of our house has four gargantuan (that’s a real word right?) hydrangea plants.

These things are huge, gorgeous and they have intimidated me for 8.5 years.

 

 

This was the year I was going to win at hydrangea-ing.

For real.

No more being afraid I will hurt them or do something to make them turn a gross color.

Nope.

I compost.  I’ve got this.

I recycle.  I can trim the hydrangeas and dry them.

If I can paint, and turn old furniture into something new, and make a mean spinach dip, surely, surely I could dry a hydrangea.

Right?

How hard could it be?

It took me two go-rounds, with a few tears and an extra glass of wine, I figured it out.

You have to dry them slowly.

 

 

Doing anything slow is like asking me to sever a limb.  Ok perhaps that is a bit extreme.

I will admit that I am patience challenged (I don’t quilt, knit or crochet) for my own sanity I realized years ago I am an instant or close to it gratification kind of gal.

Any when it comes to properly preserving hydrangeas I learned this year, I had to…. slow my roll.

Chill out.

Take it down a notch.

And release control, trusting the process.

 

 

I see gorgeous dried hydrangeas in other people’s homes.

I assume that there is a trained professional somewhere drying bundles of them, sprinkled first with magic dust, and shipping them off to excited recipients.

Apparently I have been misguided all these years, and people actually are successful at drying their own.

Who knew.

I can proudly say after the massacre of my first sad batch, I now can dry my own hydrangeas.

RIP to the first batch, they are being lovingly turned into fabulous compost for next year.

But the second batch, was my Swan Song.

It feels good.  Like when you got rid of that first elastic bra and moved onto an underwire for the first time.

You felt confident, like a big girl, who had the world in her hand, you can do ANYTHING.

Here is how I slowed my roll, and thru trial and error successfully dried hydrangeas.  I am so freakin’ excited!

I know you can’t tell…

 

 

After trimming the blooms that I wanted to use, I removed the leaves from all the stems, and trimmed the stalks down a bit.

 

 

Next I collected a bunch of Mason and miscellaneous jars, filled each with about 1.5 to 2 inches of water, and put a couple stems in each.

The super-fail batch I did not use as much water, and I had them in a sunny room that was probably too warm.

Moving forward we will refer to that as the kill-zone, sound good?

The successful run I used more water as mentioned above, and allowed them to stay in a darker room and take their sweet time to absorb the remaining water and dry all the way out.

So basically, I slowed my roll, and the hydrangeas responded favorably.

 

 

I love the soft hues that keep a hit of summer, but the muted tones are sooooo perfect for transitioning into Fall.

 

 

Have you been successful at drying flowers? I would love to hear your feedback and what works and does not work for you.

 

 

Do you find yourself trying to cut corners or get impatient and realize like me that some things take time?

 

 

A lesson to continually keep learning it seems to be.

Don’t forget to share this post on Facebook, Pinterest and any old place you like, thank you so much for reading friend, I appreciate you!!

 

Stay crafty-

xo, Tanya

       

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