I've grown them for maybe five or six years, Peegee (paniculata grandiflora) only, because most of the rest won't bloom here in zone 5. Most of them bloom on wood formed the previous year. If that wood gets too severely frozen back, there are no flowers the next year. Peegee bears on new wood. My plants freeze back to a very small stub, maybe 8" tall, but the new wood grows a good 2 feet or more before blooming at the tip.

I'm no expert. Hopefully somebody who knows them better will drop in. Some of this I've learned from experience and some of it is directly from THE cut-flower book (Specialty Cut Flowers, by Armitage and Laushman).

Cut when flowers are completely open. If harvested too early, they wilt permanently.

Whatever stem length you need is a good stem length. Bear in mind that if you cut all the stems so long that there is little foliage left, the bush won't do as well next year. It needs foliage to sustain itself and grow. I generally cut some really long but then just deadhead the rest, to keep lots of foliage.

Postharvest, defoliate stems and get them into hot water, 110-120 degrees F., then immediately put them in a cooler at 34-36 degrees. They should stay in the cooler for at least 8 hours. All of the preceding postharvest information is from Armitage. What I did is cut directly into home-made preservative water, then cut again underwater, immediately place in same preservative and let sit in a cool place (only 65-40 degrees, not 34-36 degrees) overnight, and they did pretty well. Armitage's treatment allows for shipping, preservative optional, then the customer is supposed to put them in hot water again. That treatment is supposed to result in a vase life of 7-14 days. Mine lasted at least 7 days, but I don't remember whether I ever kept them any longer. I advised customers to cut stems underwater (in a bowl of water, not under running water) at home before putting in a vase.

They don't like floral foam and perform poorly in it.

I've used them in informal bride's bouquets, just tied with wire and ribbon, no floral foam. The flowers would get my usual conditioning before being arranged, then re-cut underwater and stood up in a vase of preservative until needed. It would be delivered in that vase, taken out of water, dried off, and carried by the bride, and the hydrangeas lasted a good 3 to 5 hours before hopelessly wilting, depending on the weather. That's not bad, for a ribbon-tied bouquet. I always made sure brides knew that the flowers would last through the wedding and at least partway through the reception, but would then wilt. Anti-transpirant sprayed ahead of time helped, as always.

I hope I helped.
Is there anybody else out there who knows hydrangeas???

Jeanne

I THINK you have pretty well covered it. Wait till the pollen parts in the center florette are dried before picking. Put in Hot water then let the water get used up and don;t replace it if you want them dried. They hold their color nicely and are good for late fall decorations with grasses and other seed heads. We even use them in the holdiday season to add color to evergreens.

I am in zone 5 and H. arborescens 'Annabelle' grows very well for me. She blooms on both new and old woods. If you want large flower heads, trim all the branches down to the ground. Flowers on old woods are smaller. The older the plant, the larger the flower heads.

Jeanne, I think you have shorter summer than we do in the Midwest. This year, though, it's been very hot for a long period of time now. A lot of my flowers and plants are getting scorched. 'Annabelle' seems to do well in the heat, though, since she is a native of Illinois.

i am also in zone 5 and 'annabelle' does very well for me also. i, however have decided that i'm only going to use hydrangeas if i can consistently keep in them at a cool temperature once they're cut. i've been trying to take them to the farmers market with me and they wilt horribly, but when i cut them and can keep them cool (i.e. weddings -air conditioned car to cool indoor space), they do well.

Thanks to all for the abundant information!

Just curious, what is the benefit of cutting them into the hot water?

Also, I had read elsewhere about splitting the stems from the bottom up about one inch. What would be the benefit?

Jeanne, You mentioned that Armitage suggested the hot water. From your post, it doesn't sound like you used hot water. Did you just use room temp. water?

Does anyone know a source for cut peegees? We've got a wedding coming up on Sept. 2nd and the Green Valley Growers in California lost all theirs to the extended heat wave.

Our frost-free season is roughly 90-110 days, give or take a few. No, I'm not kidding. I'm in the Rocky Mountains. It's very beautiful here, but we pay the price in our limited gardening. We can get a frost any day of the year, and often get some mild midsummer ones, but the late-spring frosts we get are the problem for hydrangeas - they generally kill the flowerbuds that develop early, on old wood. They'll all grow here, but we only reliably get bloom on those that bloom on new wood. And I don't even TRY the hydrangeas that are rated for zone 6 any more. I'm not into zone denial - it's too expensive. I'm getting HUGE flowerheads on my peegees these days.

Gardenlover, I just used ambient-temperature water. Using different temperatures just didn't work with my harvest routines. I think the benefit of warm water generally is that it speeds up the uptake of water by the stem. Splitting the stem up from the bottom is supposed to have the same effect. I have no reason to doubt it, but I wouldn't know - I'm way too uncoordinated to split a small stem up any distance without hurting it or me!

Jeanne

I made floral crowns for my daughter and her partner for their ceremony yesterday. They were stunning! Always wanted to make one and my daughter was agreeable! I used Hydrangea "Pink Diamond" and Hydrangea "Limelight" along with rosemary, lavender, blue nigella and rose buds. We picked the hydrangeas into hot water with Jeanne's formula, and let them cool for 24 hours in a 60 degree air conditioned room. Ditto with the roses except they went into the refrigerator. We constructed the crowns the day before by making smaller "Vignettes" with peices of hydrangea, rosemary, lavender and rosebuds, wiring and wrapping the stems and sewing them onto a 1" ribbon. Finished by wrapping narrow burgundy ribbon through the crown and puttng a long bow of sheery burgundy ribbon down the back. THe crowns are now drying naturally on paper towels in my air condtioned room and looking great. I think they will be as beautiful dried as fresh!

Pink Diamond was used with the white flowers just beginning to be tinged with pink and red, and the limelight was a lovely green and ivory. Used Lovely Fairy (No kidding!) roses and the buds of Marinette

Can I split an annabel hydrangea? Mine has gotten too big for it's spot.
Thank you

cherib22, I dig from my Annabelles each Spring for an annual plant sale and have never lost any that I have potted so am sure you can remove pieces to reduce it to size. Because I want to pot them up in the Spring, I cut through the roots in the Fall and leave them in place till Spring. I then dig them out and pot them. Annabelles are really tough and grow quickly. Mary

My daughter volunteered to do funeral flowers for a friend in July. I had a huge amount of Hydrangea Tardiva -- a PG type. We had no idea how to do this -- but we did get a casket form from the Flowerama. The deceased favorite color was orange. So we used fern and the Tardiva freely and added some orange daylilies. Tardiva is a very fragrant hydrangea.
My daughter said that the arrangement was OK during the viewing and service, but started drooping by the end.

Anyway, several family members said that they appreciated the flowers so much, and that they loved the fragrance, and they wanted to plant Hyd. Tardiva as a memorial.

Susan