Dried Hydrangea Wreaths

Updating my bee shed grapevine wreath with dry hydrangeas. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Dried Hydrangea Wreaths

If you like to have wreaths on outside doors, dried hydrangeas are a wonderful addition to fill out the traditional grapevine wreaths. Dried hydrangeas add not only volume but color to the wreaths, depending on how the hydrangeas have been dried.

Look around your neighborhood and see who has hydrangeas, then ask them if you can have the flower heads when they are cut off. Some are cut in the fall, others in early spring.

Here is my bee shed grapevine wreath before I added the dried hydrangeas circling the wreath. I had a few hydrangeas in the center bordered by sprigs of dried Russian sage and orange berries. They didn’t last long, someone came along and removed all of the orange berries sprigs. It was pretty while it lasted!

Other dried flowers updated my grapevine wreath earlier this fall. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

One of the many advantages of using dried hydrangeas in outside wreaths is that they are not attractive as deer food.

Not that deer are the only ones who clear out some of my wreaths but they tend to leave tell tale hoof marks on the ground.

Here is the grapevine wreath as I was finishing adding the dried hydrangeas:

Filling in my bee shed grapevine wreath with dried hydrangea flowers. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Let’s say you have hydrangea plants and want to dry them before adding to a wreath.

I do it simply by tying them with twine and drying them in my garage hanging upside down so the flower heads dry straight on the stems.

It can take a few days to a few weeks to dry, depending on how humid conditions are.

Dry hydrangeas hanging down so the flower heads stay straight. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Now here are a few more grapevine wreaths easily transformed by adding dried hydrangea flowers. starting with a small door wreath.

Simple dried hydrangea flowers completely change this grapevine wreath. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The welcome wreath on my deck was renewed with these dried hydrangea flowers that fill in where wildlife have helped themselves to the other dried flowers:

Large grapevine wreath with dried hydrangeas against stone. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

And these stunning rust-colored dried hydrangea flower heads have quickly transformed the front porch grapevine wreath.

There’s a little bluebird gourd birdhouse in the center now almost lost in all of the dried flowers I’ve added.

These yellow dried hydrangeas add color to this outdoor grapevine wreath. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The biggest challenge is making sure the dried hydrangea stems are solidly woven through the grapevine wreaths so they hold up to wind.

Several months ago I watched as a rabbit dragged off a piece of dried flowers from this wreath. I didn’t get a close look to what it was but I do know sometimes I add enticing edibles. Not a problem, just gives me another opportunity to update the wreaths with what is growing in my garden.

Charlotte