I’m back today with a super quick tip that brings wilting flowers back with minimal effort. If you love hydrangeas as much as I do (and who doesn’t, for real) then you’ll love this tip. I hear it works for other flowers like roses as well.
I used to hate when I’d buy a bunch of flowers at the store (or cut them from the yard) and then they’d droop within a day or two. This little trick allows you to keep them (hydrangeas at least) for a week, sometimes more.
Here’s what I’m talking about — see the sad little one on the bottom left?:
Before this trick that one would have been tossed in the trash. Sometimes it happens within a day of bringing them home!
Well, as you can tell from their name — hydrangeas LOVE water. It’s kind of hard to give them too much (at least after they’re cut). The first thing you’ll want to do to plump them back up is snip just a little bit off their stem. (This, along with fresh water, helps prolong flowers in general.)
Then you just soak them in water! I fill the sink just enough to immerse them. They tend to float so sometimes I’ll weigh them down with something if I have a bunch I’m fixing.
Here’s that droopy one and another one that was looking sad in their bath:
I use cool water. You’ll want it to cover them most of the way. I push them down in the water so I don’t have to use a ton of it.
Make sure the flower and the stem are both in there. Timing is different for every one — some perk up in 20 minutes, some I leave in there for an hour or so and just check back to see when they are plump again.
Here’s the same flowers after they’ve soaked up the water:
Awesome, eh? It’s like magic! 🙂
You can do the same flower more than once — just be sure to clip some off the stem first.
These are about a week old:
And each one has been bathed at least once. 🙂 It’s different every time I buy or cut them really — some hydrangeas last for five days without needing a bath, some need it within a day or so.
When I mentioned this trick on Facebook, a reader mentioned a method she uses — she said to snip them down and replace the water in the vase with HOT water, then put the flowers back in. I tried that because it would be a lot faster, but it didn’t work for me. The first photo with the droopy one up above is actually after I tried that method. (Hours later.)
It’s fun to see the before and afters — wouldn’t it be nice if it was this easy to get everything beautiful again? 🙂 It always surprises me how different they look:
As I mentioned, I hear this works for other flowers as well. It never hurts to try, right? It’s worth it to get a few extra days out of these beauties. 🙂
Any tips you use to prolong the life of your flowers? If I don’t have the packet of flower preservatives that come with them, I’ll sometimes use ground up aspirin. I’m not sure if it really helps or not. I’ve also heard clear soda and even vodka work in the water as well. Cheers!
Here’s an image to pin for later if you’d like to save this trick:
And check out this post for a TON of tips on how to grow hydrangeas!:
