How to Care for your cut Hydrangea

Ok, so blogging isn't our thing, but every once in a while, we come across something that we feel is important to share.

'Tis the season for summer flowers, and one of the biggies is the glorious hydrangea.  Hydrangea often gets a bad rap for for being a flower that doesn't last long.  It's simply not true.

At our store in McLean, VA, we sell and use a lot of cut hydrangea.  We often get compliments from people who receive arrangements with hydrangea in them on how long the hydrangea lasted.

From time to time, a customer will bring the hydrangea that they bought the previous day back to the store, thinking that it is dead.  It's not their fault, the pretty petals are wilting, and at first glance, this would appear to be the case.

What really is happening is the hydrangea is not taking on water and simply needs proper care.

Recently, a gentleman brought in hydrangea that his wife bought to get replacement stems.  We happily gave him fresh stems to take home along with a small container of Quick Dip and reiterated our instructions on how to care for them.

We then took pictures of the stems that he returned and proceeded to give them a fresh cut, a few seconds in the quick dip, and put them into a bucket of fresh water.

Here they are before being conditioned:

They look like they are dead.

After cutting the stems and using the Quick Dip solution, they were placed in the bucket of fresh water.

Poor hydrangea.  

After two hours, we took another picture.  Do you see them coming back to life?

Another two hours, and they looked like this.

At the 6 hour mark, we took another picture.  Wow!  They are beautiful!  Plump and happy, taking on the water that they need!

So, if you buy cut hydrangea, here is what you need to know:

~You should be given a small amount of hydrating solution - if not, ask for it.

~When you get home, get your vase of fresh water ready first - stems must immediately go into water after being cut and Quick Dipped.

~Cut your stems with a sharp knife or pair of snips and put them right into the hydrating solution.  After a few seconds in the solution, place them in the vase of water.

~Check on them in about an hour or so.  If they aren't taking on water, and sometimes they don't, take them out of the vase, give them a fresh cut and dip and put them back into the vase.

~This process can be repeated as many times as necessary.  

So here's to your success with those fickle flowers that we all love!

Happy Hydrangea!!

Welcome

Hello and Welcome to the first blog post!  Hopefully you will find helpful information here from time to time.  Our goal is to keep readers up to date on what is happening with the floral industry, general info about flowers and plants, and sometimes a little etc.

Our company has almost 35 years experience:  Actually, we will celebrate our 35th anniversary on September 10th, 2011!  We are planning some fun activities! More on that later.

As you have probably heard, our area experience an earthquake yesterday.  Who would have guessed that our first blog would be about that! HA!  Anyway, what an experience it was.  When it first began, we were not sure what was going on.  Like most people, we though it was a low flying plane or a really big truck coming through the alley.  When the shelves of vases, which surround our workroom area, began to shake and rattle, and the ground began to move, we knew it was an earthquake!  We all headed for the back door and met all the other merchants from the shopping center in the alley.  Scary stuff!
We are happy to report that although everything got moved around a bit, only one glass vase fell and crashed on the floor.  Phew!

So, as an introduction, we would like to share a link to our website and our facebook and twitter pages.  We will be sharing other interesting links about flowers, plants, gardening and the like in the near future.  Stop back and check our blog for some interesting stuff.

If you have any particular subject that you would like more info on, please send us an email here.

That's it for now. . . off to pick the posies!!