Now that I am a proud hydrangea owner, I want to know how to dry them properly. Last year on the market, I bought a big blue hydrangea, hung it upside down in a cool dry place. It dried beautifully and I was able to use it for about six months as a decoration in the bathroom of Closerie Falaiseau before it fell apart.

To replace it, I cut off one of my own pink hydrangeas and did the same thing. Only it shrivelled up and went brown. I thought maybe you needed special hydrangeas so I bought one at the market again. I explained I was going to dry it and that I hadn’t been successful with my own hydrangea.

The lady told me the secret. Those blue petal-like things are not actually petals, but bracts (pointsettias have them too). The flowers are the tiny things in the middle. You can see that most of them are open but that a couple are still in the form of a closed ball. You have to keep the hydrangea in water, changing it twice a week, until all the flowers are open.

That’s when you take it out of the water, strip the leaves off and hang it upside down so that it will be evenly shaped. I can’t wait to try out the same technique on my pink hydrangeas. Any other hydrangea lovers out there?

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