I’d never had this happen before I recently brought home some fresh cut hydrangeas . I was suddenly thrust into the wilting Hydrangeas crisis of 2023 as 2 of the 5 heads suddenly began to droop.

Now, three of the 5  heads were vibrant and bright, but the other two had wilted in only a couple hours which made this so much more confusing. 

Was it something I did? If so, why didn’t it effect the other flowers?

I know hydrangeas are thirsty flowers that like lots of water. Why would some flowers droop but not all of them? 

General Hydrangea Care

Hydrangeas don’t require much special care. In general, they should act much like most mixed bouquets you buy in the store. Following these general guidelines should make hydrangeas happy:

1. Place the cut hydrangea stems in the vase and fill it with cool water covering the stem bottoms with a couple inches of clean fresh water.

2. Make sure the ends of the stems have been trimmed at an angle so they can easily take fresh water up the stem. Trimming about one inch should do the trick. 

4. Make sure the vase is placed in a cool area away from direct sunlight.

5. Check the water level in the vase every other day, and add more if necessary. These are thirsty flowers and you might be surprised how much water they can take in. 

6. Change the water in the vase every 2-3 days.

7. To help the hydrangeas last longer, use a flower food to give the flowers an extra boost of nutrients they need to stay fresh longer.

But what do you do if you still have wilting cut hydrangeas after doing everything else right?

That’s what happened to me. These two stems where wilting FAST and I was afraid they wouldn’t make it another day so drastic actions was needed here. 

I checked out google scholar for advice and found the reasons for hydrangea drooping in vase can vary from disease and bacteria, to bad water or age of the flowers. 

Hydrangeas average from 7-15 days life (from time of being cut). 

Which I bought these flowers the week after new year’s so it’s possible the retailer decided to combine an older flower that had not sold before the holiday weekend into a newer bouquet. That’s a fairly common practice to maximize profit margins and would easily explain why 2 of the 5 heads appeared to die so suddenly. 

But giving the benefit of the doubt, I still tried to save these flowers. 

What did I do?

I tried to immerse them in a bath of cool filtered water (filtered water is especially important for hydrangeas that can be sensitive to extra minerals in the vase water). 

Be sure to trim the bottoms of the stems (at an angle) so they have a large surface area exposed to the water so they can take a nice big drink. This is all about giving them every opportunity to take in as much water as they can and perk up. 

Did it work?

Yes! but not right away. While the leaves looked a little better after 4 hours, the overall flower quality was not revived after the water bath.  But I’m never one to give up, and placed them in a vase anyway, hoping for a miracle. 

And look what I got the next day: 

hydrangeas revived the next morning