paige_bell81•8d agoMost Upvoted

Rant: My hydrangea order came in half dead this morning

I ordered 60 stems from a new supplier in Raleigh for a wedding Saturday and 32 of them were wilted to the point of no return, so now I'm scrambling to find replacements from three different local growers before noon - anyone else had luck reviving hydrangeas with that alum powder trick or is that a myth?

3 comments

3 Comments

joseph_green138d ago

Alum powder is legit, I've used it on hydrangeas that looked worse than that. Trim the stems at a sharp angle, dip the fresh ends in alum powder, then put them in boiling water for 30 seconds before moving to cool water. Got about half to perk back up that way. Have you tried the hot water trick yet?

blair9908d ago

Man, that's a rough way to start a wedding week. I feel for you. @joseph_green13 nailed it with the alum powder and hot water combo. In my experience, it's not a myth at all, but it does work better on stems that are just starting to wilt rather than fully crispy. I've had maybe a 60 percent success rate on some real sad looking hydrangeas using that exact method. Trim at a sharp angle like they said, and make sure the water you move them into after the hot water dip is ice cold. That sudden temperature shock seems to make a big difference. Good luck scrambling with the local growers, hope you find enough backups to pull it off.

martinez.paul8d ago

60 stems and half are dead? Thats rough but I dunno, its just flowers at the end of the day. People get so worked up over this stuff. @blair990 probably has a point about the alum trick though, even if it only works half the time.