Why Does My Hydrangea "Die"?

We don't get many complaints about flowers prematuraley persihing, but when we do it's typically about hydrangea. Popular for it's full and romantic look, hydrangea is a staple in our cooler. You'll notice in the title I put the word die in quotations. The reason for this is that; although it may look like it's past the point of no return it can, and will, come back to life with a simple trimming. The word hydrangea acutally has the name of the Greek water monster(Hydra) in it, a little clue that it is a thirsty plant/flower.

Hydrangea drooping can be prevented by recutting every two days, we state this on our flower care cards. Even though arrangements come with instuctions sometimes we get pannicked calls. Once such incident occured this week. 

We created this lovely arrangement for a 70th birthday with a focus on hydrangea.

Two days later the recipient called us. She was very upset that the hydrangea in her arrangement had all "died". I could not convince her otherwise so I offered to bring the arrangement back to the store to fix it. "It must just be a bad bunch" she said. Below is the arrangement when it arrived back in the shop.

I replaced the hydrangea but held on to the old ones. As you can see below, most people would just toss them.

All I did was give them a fresh cut and place them in clean water. When I came back to work in the morning: pretso! They were full of life again. This could of been prevented by recutting every few days. That being said if you think they are dead give them a second chance. The cut reveals fresh pores to absorb water, the old ones become clogged quickley. We stand behind our products, but we also know that our customers are not florists so we are always here to help!

Watch the magic of a fresh cut!