Grow and Harvest Hydrangeas for Cut Flowers and Dried Flowers

Purplish blue hydrangea flower in a metal vase — Blue macrophylla hydrangea

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Most hydrangeas make great cut flowers, both fresh and dried. Which ones you choose to grow depends on the look you like. Hydrangeas are beautiful landscape shrubs and their care is pretty simple.

There are four types of hydrangeas, plus one. They are bigleaf hydrangea, oakleaf hydrangeas, panicle hydrangeas, and smooth hydrangeas. The plus one is the Endless Summer type.

No matter which one you have, you’ll be able to harvest big, gorgeous fresh and dried cut flowers. Each type has a unique flower shape and the different varieties of each type will offer many colors to choose from. All are beautiful.

Descriptions below of each type include a link to hydrangea growers that provide thorough instructions for plant needs, care, and pruning. Be sure to check what zone the hydrangeas grow well in. Go here to find your growing zone if you don’t know it.

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Know the blooming types so you can prune correctly

Knowing the blooming type of hydrangea you have is important because each type has different pruning requirements. If hydrangeas are not pruned properly, you may lose a season or two of blooms! We don’t want that!

Hydrangeas bloom on either new wood or on old wood. This is true for all shrubs, and that lets you know how to go about your pruning.

Blooming types: new wood or old wood

Each of the four Hydrangea types bloom on either new wood or old wood (except that “plus one”).

Old wood flowers grow from stems that have been on the bush since last summer, or longer. Old wood hydrangeas bloom earlier in the season, usually in late spring or early summer and tend to be done flowering by midsummer. The flower buds on old wood hydrangeas form in summer or fall, soon after the current season’s flowers have finished. You don’t want to prune them off! See the pruning instructions to get it right.

New wood is growth that occurs during the current growing season. New wood bloomers bloom on young green branches. They usually start flowering in midsummer and bloom until frost. New wood flower buds form at the ends of new shoots.

Remember it this way: The flowers formed on old wood have woody stems. The flowers formed on new wood have green stems.

That’s what makes the pruning requirements different, and so important for getting a good supply of flowers from your Hydrangeas.

Hydrangea types and pruning

Old wood blooming hydrangeas

Big rounded pink flower clusters on a shrub — Pink Hydrangea macrophylla credit: Nusa Urbancek via Unsplash

Bigleaf, Mophead, and Lacecap (Hydrangea macrophylla)

These have thick, shiny, heart shaped leaves with serrated edges. They tend to have big, rounded flower heads.

Pruning Bigleaf Hydrangeas
These don’t need much pruning at all, but at the right time is a must. Prune when the flowers are done blooming. Simply cut the flower stems back to the next healthy node, one that has good growth buds on each side of the stem. You can cut a little farther down the stem if you want longer stems for cut flowers. It’s basically deadheading (see below).

Since they bloom on old wood, the flower buds are produced the previous season. If you prune them before they flower, you’ll be removing the flower buds.

While you’re at it this is the time to cut back any straggly stems either to a node or remove them at the base. This early trimming allows the newly formed wood to set its buds for next year’s flowers and growth. Remove dead stems at the base at any time. That’s all!

Note: some bigleaf hydrangeas are of the Endless Summer series which bloom on old and new wood, so see more on those at the end of this list. These are the plus ones I mentioned. Here’s a good pruning guide for bigleaf hydrangeas, straight from hydrangea supplier, hydrangea.com.

Oakleaf Hydrangeas (H. quercifolia)
Oak-leaf shaped leaves and cone-shaped flowers on woody stems describe this type. You can harvest the flowers fresh by cutting to a healthy node. Or wait till they fully mature and turn more paper-like and develop rosy colors for fresh and dried flowers.

Oakleafs are bred from native hydrangeas from southeastern US. They have nice fall color from their flowers and foliage, making these excellent landscape shrubs.

Pruning Oakleaf Hydrangeas
They do not need pruning except for occasional shaping. Simply cut the flowers fresh or leave them to turn to their beautiful red shades and have a dry papery texture, they’re ready to harvest and dry. Here’s a complete guide for growing and pruning oakleaf hydrangeas.

New wood blooming hydrangeas

Panicle Hydrangeas (H. paniculata)
Thin, ovate leaves (oval with a point at the tip) with some serration at the edges and cone-shaped flower heads with tight spacing between florets, making for nice, full flowers describes these Hydrangeas. They’re easy to grow and make wonderful landscape shrubs.

The flowers are white or green-white, but most of the varieties age to pinks, which makes for beautiful dried flowers! These are one of my favorites.

Many cone-shaped clusters of white flowers on shrubs — Panicle hydrangeas

Pruning Panicle Hydrangeas
These don’t necessarily need regular pruning, but they’ll produce better flower stems if you do. Prune them back while dormant by about a third. This will send up more flowering shoots. That’s it. These are one of my favorites and they’re so easy to maintain. Limelight is my favorite variety, but there are a few new versions of Limelight that look just as great. Here’s a full guide to growing and pruning panicle hydrangeas.

Big round head of white flowers on a shrub — Smooth hydrangea flower head credit: Timeless and Traditional via Unsplash

Smooth Hydrangeas (H. arborescens)
Heart-shaped leaves that are matte and thinner than Mophead types with big round flower heads are what these feature. This group is bred from the wild hydrangeas native to much of the southeastern US.

The flowers are naturally white, but some new varieties are pink.

Pruning Smooth Hydrangeas
Remember that the flowers form on the new growth. Like the panicle hydrangeas, cutting the whole plant back by a third of its height will send up better and more new flower shoots. Remove old wood that is dead or weak. Some new growth comes from the roots and the flowers will develop on these stems, so there’s no need to keep the very old stems. Prune in early spring. Here’s a complete guide to growing and pruning smooth hydrangeas.

Endless Summer Hydrangeas (H. macrophylla)

The Endless Summer type is also known as a reblooming type. And there are many varieties of these. Endless Summer Hydrangeas bloom on both old wood and new wood! The idea is to keep giving you new fresh flowers.

These need little pruning. Simply harvest the fresh flowers by cutting down to a healthy node in late summer to early fall for fresh and dried flowers. And do any shaping that’s needed. At any time you can remove dead or broken branches.

Just don’t over-prune these or you’ll lose many of next year’s flowers. Here’s a guide to growing and pruning Endless Summer hydrangeas.

Deadheading

Any of the Hydrangeas can be deadheaded the same way. That is, if you don’t want the dried flowers. Or don’t to keep the color of the aging flowers on the shrub, which I find attractive. To deadhead, cut the flower stems to about a quarter inch above the first set of leaves, or further down, to a healthy node.

How to change the color of your Hydrangeas

There are just a few varieties that are able to change their flower color. The big-flowering H. macrophylla and the Endless Summer varieties, with the exception of Blushing Bride, a white hydrangea.

The flower color of these hydrangeas is either blue or pink and is determined by how much aluminum in the soil the plant can take up in its roots. The availability is determined by the soil pH—whether the soil is acid or basic (often termed alkaline)—and the phosphorous levels. If the soil is acidic and has low phosphorous levels the aluminum is more available and the flowers will be blue. With a basic (alkaline) soil the aluminum is locked up and the flowers will be pink. And if the soil is neutral it’ll produce purple flowers.

So how do we do this?

The recipe for blue flowers is to add sulfur to the soil or better, add aluminum sulfate, while maintaining low levels of phosphorous (this is the P in the NPK formula on fertilizer packages). Add sulfur or aluminum sulfate in the fall and in early along with the lower P fertilizer.
To turn the flowers pink add garden lime, a few handfuls (with gloves) mixed into the soil. Also, keep high nitrogen levels and high phosphorous, as in this organic fertilizer. Add a balanced fertilizer and lime in the fall and in early spring.
Effects take a few years so maintain your program. If you start seeing purple in the flowers, that’s showing a change!
Always use organic fertilizers. They support the healthy soil biome that works with plant roots to feed them. Chemical fertilizers disrupt the soil biome. Here’s a good one for blue hydrangeas.

Big, round purple hydrangea on the bush — Purple bigleaf hydrangea that can change color with soil treatment.

Beware of the myth that pine needles will acidify your soil

This myth has been around for a very long time and it is not true. What is true is that when they are green and freshly fallen their acidity is high. But once they fall they lose that acidity quickly. There are also terpenes in the needles that dissipate quickly and don’t harm plants. Both these truths about pine needles make them perfectly fine to use as a mulch or compost ingredient, but not as a soil acidifier.

How to harvest hydrangeas for fresh and dried flowers

Fresh hydrangea flowers are famous for wilting soon after cutting them, even if they’re in plenty of water. But there are a few things you can do.

Use basic good harvesting and conditioning practices

Always bring a clean container partly filled with warm water to the flowers, and a sharp pair of clippers. See more on harvesting here.

Harvest in the cool of the morning, before the sun is on them. Cut at an angle. Remove all lower foliage that would be in water in the vase with the sharp clippers. Place stems in the water and bring in to a cool, dark place to rest for 8 hrs. or so.

Use an alum dip

Alum is used in pickling for crispness, and it’s good for helping cut flowers take up water, and continue to do so, especially with woody stems. Have your vase of water ready, make a fresh cut at an angle, and dip it into the alum, then into the water. Yes the alum will come off but it will be in the solution. You can find alum with the spices in the grocery store.

Split the stem

Another trick is to split the woody stems about an inch up from the bottom with a sharp knife. This exposes more surface area for the stem to take up water.

Wait till later in the season, use fresh and then dry them

Most of the hydrangeas fare better as cut flowers when they are cut much later in the season. I like to wait till they’re papery, and feel kind of dry already and cut them and put them into water. Then I let them dry there. If any start to droop I hang them upside down as in other drying flowers.

Blue and purple dried hydrangea flowers in a vase — Dried bigleaf hydrangeas that were simply air dried upright after picking them when fully ripe on the bush.

Mixed flower bouquet in a vase, with white panicle hydrangeas — Mixed bouquet with Limelight fresh flowers that lasted for weeks.

Favorite variety

My favorite is limelight. The fresh cut flowers do well in bouquets, they last well with basic harvesting and stem splitting. They have a green tinge when they’re new, turn to a bright, clear white, and then turn a pretty rosy color in late summer into fall.