Seed Talk #93 – Growing Hydrangeas as Cut Flowers

Looking for big, beautiful flowers to fill up your summer bouquets? Wondering how to grow, harvest, and store hydrangeas to ensure a long vase life and prevent wilting? Today, Lisa and Layne discuss the ins and outs of growing hydrangeas as cut flowers. They cover why they are a valuable addition to cutting gardens and flower farms, the optimal growing conditions and spacing, the proper harvest stage for fresh and dried use, how to strip the stems, conditioning tips, and more. Listen to the podcast and get ready to fill your summer bouquets with gorgeous, long-lasting hydrangea flowers!

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The “Seed Talk with Lisa & Layne” podcast is produced by The Gardener’s Workshop and co-hosted by Lisa Mason Ziegler and Layne Angelo. Lisa is the founder and owner of The Gardener’s Workshop, where Layne works as Seed Manager. Lisa is the award-winning author of Vegetables Love Flowers and Cool Flowers and the publisher of Flower Farming School Online, Farmer-Florist School Online, and Florist School Online. Watch Lisa’s Story and connect with her on social media. Layne is an avid gardener, seed starter, and engineer who loves learning and applying her technical knowledge to all areas of life, including gardening and growing flowers. Thanks for joining us!
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[Music] hey friends welcome back to another seed talk with Lisa and Lane hey Lane hello I’m very excited about our topic today CU these flowers are just blowing up out in the garden right now you know I just um stood back at my Grove and did a bunch of videos this past week so you’re exactly right they’re here in Southeastern Virginia they are just kicking off the show so friends before we dive in this is just a reminder that this podcast is brought to you by the gardeners workshop.com where we can kind of help you with all your gardening needs when it’s connected to starting seeds growing cut flowers education supplies tools seeds we’ve got you covered and um so check it out all right lane let’s let them know what this was not all about well today we’re going to be talking about a favorite flower of so many people home gardeners and Farmers alike it’s not something we typically start from seed but the flowers are an excellent complement to all the other things we’re growing from seed and we’re going to be talking about hydrangeas we’re mostly going to be focusing on big leaf hydrangeas and panicle hydrangeas so hydrangea macril and panicula yes so we’ll be going over some tips for where to situate them the proper Harvest stage how to condition them to help you enjoy them not just in the garden but then to bring them in and either sell them or use them in your own home oh that’ll be awesome yeah I love these all right Lisa so why should someone consider planting hydrangeas if they’re a home Gardener or a farmer and why are they such a valuable crop in your situation on your farm sure so hydrangeas are if as long as you um tend to grow those that grow well in your region meaning you know it’s not too cold in the winter and that type of thing they’re just kind of easy keeper shrubs and when you place them in the right spot they just kind of go without you and they just show up one day and you’re just so glad that you actually planted them as a home Gardener and as a farmer oh my goodness hydranges are really really invaluable to us not only did I sell them for many years in straight bunches to our commercial customers but then as we ramped up our bouquet program where we were making hundreds of mixed bouquets every week all season long they became a major filler for those um bouquet I mean everybody because of people’s love for hydrangeas everybody loves a mixed bouquet that’s got a nice old hydrangea tucked into it somewhere um so as flower Farmers um we always did our best to use them up or to sell them all and we have a lot of hydranges here um I have two Groves which are just huge plantings of hydrangeas and we use them all up but on the event that we didn’t use them up fresh which is my preferred way to Market and sell everything because adding dried is just another process you have to go through right um so if you don’t sell them then you have the option to dry them and then I mean wreaths and dried arrangements and Christmas ornaments and I mean there’s just so there are just endless possibilities and I love a crop that has multiple way that it can be used yeah I love the fact that they have such a wide Harvest window and like you mentioned they can be dried and there’s just lots of different species to choose from with different flower forms and colors as well as Bloom times some are even native to the United States and they’re just stunning flowers out in the landscape or in bouquet it’s true okay Lisa so you have an interesting way that you actually got a lot of the plants in your hydrangea Grove but do you have any favorite varieties or how did you come across those plants so the original plantings that are here on our family farm um were actually planted by Steve’s grandmother um you know gosh six seven decades ago um and those were the originals that I started with and if you’re um listening to this on a podcast app you probably ought to head over to YouTube and watch our Channel because lay has a beautiful slideshow going and I was going to say the the image on the right of the blue mops um were some of those they are directly from those original Grandma ones and that is I mean just a favorite spot here on the farm that runs along the road so all of our neighbors get to enjoy that the image on the left is the hydrange of Grove that’s in the back of our farm and those plants literally were brought home by my husband who is a plumber and they do big like sewer and waterline work and so they’re always diing up people’s yards and so often there would be hydranges in the way and people would say oh just rip that out we don’t even care about that bush and Steve of course would dig it up and bring it home and I bet I have 40 hydrangeas in that back Grove that actually came to me that way I have no idea what their variety is um and you can see that in here on the channel where you see the picture some are pink and some are blue and the acidity definitely affects that but you can see these are all planted in the same spot and so there is some variety influence on that also yeah and for anyone not familiar with some varieties of certain hydrangea species for example a lot of hydrangea macril varieties the soil acidity can have an effect on the flower color so do you actually adjust your soil acidity Lisa at all to try to get pink or blue flowers or have you found that the pinks and blues are kind of equally in demand and you just take whatever it is sure so my method is we’re a very busy flower farm and I would love to dabble with that but no we take whatever comes and so now it’s June right and they’re in bloom I mean this this is the wedding month you know pink would be very very much in demand um for that so we just take whatever blooms come so how did you actually space your hydranges in this Grove or if you were going to add new on how would you like to space them and what conditions have you found that hydrangeas need to thrive sure so we’re in the South right we’re in V Southeastern Virginia which we are hot and humid and by locating them in the their preferred location whatever that is what that does for us as flower Farmers is it preserves the blooms longer and you know often times if they’re out in too much sun um it tends to burn the blooms up early or it just Cooks them I mean you know hydrangea blooms are just full of water you know that’s what they’re they’re just really kind of puffed up they’re like a sponge right and when they’re in full blast and hot sun you know the perfect world on my farm which this Grove actually is in they get about 3 to four hours of early morning sun and then they’re totally shaded by those big pine trees you see behind them um for the rest of the day that is the best case scenario and we typically Al don’t lose these blooms to being burnt up another problem is if it rains on them and they get wet and then the full sun hits them that makes spots and burns them up really quick also um so here for us um the big the big leaf Mop Heads prefer that early morning sun afternoon shade I do in fact have um some PG’s Limelight and I also have an oak leaf I forgot about I actually have two um and they seem to tolerate more sun but still if they were out in full sun all day the the blooms just don’t last as long in the garden I mean you can really prolong the show in your garden by really giving them a few hours in the morning and then afternoon shade I mean I think all of us would agree on that we last longer in the garden that way right it’s so true and I can attest to that as well because we have some Oakleaf hydranges of the same variety throughout the yard and some are in more sun and some are in less and they both Bloom well it’s just that the ones located in more sun they just kind of burn up faster you know they don’t look as good for as long they are so adaptable too to being moved I get that question a lot and we can talk about that whenever but I just want to say don’t be afraid to move them from that hot location and people in more Northern climates maybe if you have cooler Summers you may be able to get away with more sun and they might not burn up as fast so that might just be something that you’ll have to experiment with depending on where you live and I think that’s often what misleads people um we see images of I mean there’s a several I’m thinking on in my mind up in Kate Cod you’re right they do grow hydrangeas in full sun up there because they don’t have our summers um and people see that and they come home and try it is what actually happens um but yeah you have to really think about your garden before you place them and choose varieties how about spacing okay so it really would depend on what your ingame is we knew that we would be cutting them and when we say cutting them harvesting them that’s like a hard prune so all through the harvesting season for these which for us would be June and July typically um we’re cutting them really really hard so we can just like a cutting Garden is planted tighter together our hydranges are so in my Grove I have two imaginary beds that run the length and those beds are about six to se probably six to 10 feet apart from Center to Center and in that imaginary bed there’s two rows of hydrangeas that are staggered and they’re probably I’m GNA guess I not six feet apart they’re not that far they’re probably more like four to six feet apart and I also wanted to mention that you can actually split up hydranges just like you do a hosta and that’s you know Steve would bring home a bush and often times when you’re standing at the Grove when it’s in full bloom you can see where I that there’s one way in the back that looks just like this one in the front and you can tell that I split those apart um so I am for planting them closer than further apart and if you’re not going to cut them it takes a lot of years for them to get crowded so some hydranges Bloom on old wood some Bloom on new new wood we’re not going to get super into that because that depends on the species but aside from your harvesting do you tend to do any pruning on any of your hydranges so when I am actually harvesting I have pruning in mind I am trying to make the cuts and that’s how you actually generate longer straighter stems next year is by when I’m harvesting um I’m thinking you know I’m going to cut this deep and hard and if I see my methodology for pruning is to prune a third of the stems back to the ground of the oldest wood and those that are being cut for FL cut for fresh flowers and by doing that you’re leaving two-thirds of the plant that way whe if you don’t know whether they bloom on New or Old Wood which is the case for most people you still have two-thirds of the Bush still there to go into next year to have blooms on it um so when I’m harvesting I’m thinking pruning while I’m there because we do not have time to go back and prune okay so now we’re going to move on to harvesting so a lot of people struggle with harvesting hydranges Lisa and maybe they’re not cutting at the optimal time of day or perhaps they’re cutting at far too early of a stage or maybe they’re not stripping the stems hard enough and the flowers just seem to wilt and never recover yeah so starting with the big leaf hydranges what is the proper Harvest stage to help prevent that wilting and then can you talk about how you would go on to strip the stems as as well sure so this is a perfect slide Lane um and y’all if you’re listening you have to go look at this because the image on there’s three images the image on the left is very immature you can see that it’s still green and this in fact is my favorite stage to harvest I start as soon as that bloom spreads a little bit so it’s actually usable you know what I mean in size like it’s going to actually make a contribution because that type of green looking Bloom would have been in May typically for us and a lot of times we’re looking for some filler something to go along with all the cool flowers that we grow I find they’re easier to hydrate in the stage of growth early however I mean if they’re only the size of a tennis ball top you know that’s really really early and the stem may not be mature enough to actually draw water up to keep it hydrated um but I’m telling you I have cut them pretty dadgum immature I find people are cutting them at the wrong time of day they’re planted in full sun you’re out there in the heat cutting them I mean the minute you make the cut they’re already down you can’t overcome that poor location um so you can start cutting them very immature um and because we have so many we try to stretch the Harvest for as long as possible so we can use them all up so stardom really immature the image in the middle you can see that there’s still green present on many of those Bloom especially the ones on the bottom um so that’s you know they’re coming along and they’re getting colored up then those bunches that you see actually laying on that concrete that was actually at my mother-in-law’s house she had even more beautiful hydranges than I did and I would show up at her house at 6:00 a.m. on harvest morning and just ravage her hydranges I mean it was just endless blooms um and you can see there that I strip everything off except perhaps one top Leaf um and you know it’s just really about the time of day that you harvest them we do it first thing in the morning before the Sun hits the bush the minute the Sun starts hitting the bush it starts depleting the carbs that are in the plant but you don’t mean I don’t really care about that part but that carbs are in the the moisture that’s in those blooms and so I want those blooms after they have spent the night recharging and I want to cut them and get them in a bucket immediately and then get them into cool to cold conditions as soon as possible do you ever find that it helps to water the plants really thoroughly the day before you’re planning on harvesting them that is a really great question and certainly every plant benefits from being well hydrated when it’s cut that wasn’t a reality for us just because of the volume and where our Groves are located um but that would surely help but I will tell you I have I have harvested some pretty dehydrated hydrangeas before but if you get them early get them directly and you know I mean you can see those laying on the concrete I would cut the whole bush get them stripped and do that and then race um i’ literally race home which was like two minutes away get them into water and get them right into the air conditioning building and then they would go into a cooler and they would do fine it’s really your steps that can overcome that but in a perfect world yes how long of stems are you aiming for for each cut that you’re making as long as possible when I sold him a straight bunches um I’m going to guess 15 to 20 Ines but we’re looking for 20 in Plus for bouquet making and when I was bouquet making especially when you first start harvesting um some existing bushes you have on your farm or in your garden they often aren’t tall straight stems they’re all this branchy business right so you kind of have to makeshift the first couple of years I would if there’s a bunch of short little blooms you can’t save all of them because it will not hydrate properly you’re just looking to save the one or two blooms that are at the top of the stem and you’re going to just Tri clip off all those extras going down the limb and sometimes the stems are caddy Wampus because it’s like a branchy on a branchy on a branchy and when you’re making mixed bouquet we didn’t care about that because we were tucking them into a bouquet now you got a florist isn’t necessarily going to want to pay you top dollar for that but that’s how I really got my hydrangea Grove into great condition was by starting to use them in bouquet cutting them harder and getting rid of all those branches so next year we have these tall straight stems and I’m telling you had 30in hydrangeas big old blooms on the top of a straight stem and it was incredibly valuable are there any differences in terms of your panicle hydranges for the Harvest stage Lisa sure yes so the pgs um so that’s Limelight and tardiva are the two that I grow and these are huge blooms that you’re seeing in this image and I will tell you that our goal now is to never grow that big again because they’re very susceptible to Breaking right underneath the head um I didn’t realize that you know that wasn’t what we really wanted Limelight you definitely have to let them age out a little bit and you can see the image on the right um you know you that you can tell the blooms that don’t have a lot of green still on the tip um are the perfect stage to harvest um and because they’ll Wilt and there’s really nothing that I found to be able to do it especially when they’re this big um but those we let age out we do not cut them immaturely so how should people store their fresh cut hydranges maybe if they’re a farmer that has a cooler and then perhaps if they’re a home Gardener that might just have a refrigerator and are there any special conditioning tips or is there anything you’re doing differently for hydranges than a lot of your other flowers sure um we didn’t find it necessary to cut on an angle we just cut them um and so when we bring them in our work building here is air conditioned so it would be 68 to 70 Dees in here um but if the cooler was fired up which is the preferred conditions for hydrangea I mean think about their mean I I compare them to lettuce it’s like you know how you have wimpy lettuce because you left it sitting out on the counter but then you put it back in the refrigerator um and it pops it kind of crisps up the same thing happens to hydranges so a cooler is definitely beneficial to really keep them in good shape and um to kind of revive them some um conditioning products I did not find necessary but it doesn’t hurt them either because for us and we we put conditioning stuff in all of our buckets there’s just no way to separate that out but it’s not required they don’t pollute the water um and so we bring them into the AC put them into the cooler our best case is to put them in the cooler overnight before we use them to make bouquet or to sell them so you have cvbn tablets in all of your buckets you don’t do anything with hydrating treatments like quick dip or anything would you recommend that someone try that if they are having issues with hydrange is not hydrating properly it definitely works yes we have done that in the case where you have some you know you maybe their feet didn’t get down in the water you know what I mean and you put them and set them aside and then you come in the next morning and they’re wilted right um so yeah quick dip hydrator definitely will resurrect hydrangeas um if most of the other conditions have been met and would you recommend putting that straight in the Harvest bucket or would you move it into a Sol with that after you bring it inside that’s two choices you know I mean if you have a if you have ongoing issues with stripping with hydrangea harvesting you know putting that two tablespoons of hydrator in your Harvest bucket can only be beneficial you know but you don’t need to do that if they’re not wilting you know and I mean it’s just just a waste of product yeah what temperature was your cooler typically at for these 42 was where we kept our cooler now we’re going to talk about if you want to let the hydr es start to age and get that sort of antiqu look on the plant how wide is the Harvest window for hydrangeas and can the flowers be dried and how sure so that’s that’s a great image the image on the right is and these are both at a harvest time um that is the perfect stage so if we because we started using a mixed bouquet I started experimenting with stretching out the Harvest so we’d have them as long as possible and so when they’re blue or pink or purple whatever they are and they start to change colors the moisture is starting to um leave the blooms and they’re starting to get papery feeling um and we stay we just Harvest every week and you just see the different stages as they happen once they start to change color they’re candidates to really be easily dried um and so you know we would then start making mixed bouquets that we could tell people hey this is a great one to dry it’s got straw flowers it’s got hyd ranges it’s got gum frina and Status da just hang it upside down once you’re done fresh the reason you hang it is that way it doesn’t Dro during the drying process it stays nice and upright um and yeah so they’re easily anybody I mean literally you can let the water dissipate if it’s just hydranges in the vase you can let the water dissipate or be absorbed by the hydrangeas and they’ll just dry right there in the vase with there at this stage I mean if you’re if you’re planning to make a big wreath or something then you’re going to need to hang them to get a nice volume of plants to make your wreath with um and so at any of these stages they would be easily hung up and um dried all right well that was it for our hydrangea episode I hope that inspired you to try harvesting some hydrangeas if you haven’t already please feel free to share in the comments over on YouTube or using the form Linked In the show notes if you have any tips or tricks for harvesting hydranges or your favorite variety and thanks so much for joining us again please be sure to share seed talk with a friend if you’re enjoying it and we always appreciate your ratings and reviews in a podcast app and your likes and comments over on YouTube all right friends that’s going to be a wrap for today and remember we’d love to hear from you and invite your friends till we meet again friends ciao bye