Styling With Dried Hydrangeas: 3 Ways

Hi Friends! If you're living in the Northern Hemisphere and have any Hydrangea plants growing in your garden, now is the time to plan for the autumn harvesting and drying of their flowers.

Dried Hydrangea flowers will last for years and are a lovely way to add some interest, texture and color to your home.

Today I'm sharing three ways that I'm displaying dried Hydrangeas in my home; bedroom, dining room and kitchen areas.

In my bedroom, above, I've placed cut stems into a thrifted Pier One wall pocket.

And in my dining area, below, I've placed them into milk glass pedestal bowls.

Simply cut the stems completely off and place into the bowl. Faff with them until you achieve a pleasing ball shape.

Lastly, I placed a bunch in a colorful blue and white Chinese vase in my kitchen.

If you're interested in learning about drying Hydrangea flowers, I wrote about the basic steps in DIY: Drying Garden Hydrangeas for Wreath Making. And if you would like to know more about making a decorative wreath with dried Hydrangeas, check out DIY: Autumn Hydrangea Wreath.

Thanks for looking and bye for now.

DIY: Drying Garden Hydrangeas for Wreath Making

Here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon the autumn season is still in full swing. The leaves on the sweet gum trees in my neighborhood are a blaze of red, orange and yellow. And the leaves that have fallen from the maple, oak and cottonwood trees have been raked up and are piled high on the curbsides waiting for the recycling truck.

Likewise, the hydrangea flowers in my garden have turned from their bright spring pastel shades to various darker autumnal tones of pink, purple, green and blue. Ahhh, yes - this is the time of year to cut and preserve these delightfully fluffy pom-pom balls of color!

Drying garden hydrangea flowers is a very easy process, but timing is everything. If cut too soon they'll wilt just like any cut flower. But if cut during the autumn season before the first frost the moisture will properly evaporate and the flower heads will last for years to come. Preserved hydrangeas provide one with an easy opportunity to enjoy having flowers in the home through the winter months, or if one chooses, throughout the year.

As mentioned, the trick is to cut the flowers in the autumn before the first frost. How you can tell if your hydrangeas are ready to be cut for preservation is to examine the log stems. The plant will begin to dry out on its own as it begins the process of going into dormancy for the winter. The stems should look dry from the ground up to just past the half way point of the flower head. The flower heads should still feel soft and fluffy, with petals fully formed and colors muted.

Cut long stems and arrange into a florist bucket or any utility-type container. Pour about an inch or two of water into the bottom of your chosen container. The idea here is to add just enough water to see the flowers through the drying process. I poured 32 ounces of water into this standard sized farm bucket.

Place your container in a cool dry area of your home for 1-3 weeks. I placed mine in my garage. Depending on the amount of moisture in the flower heads when you started the process, you should start feeling the flower heads begin to dry within a week or so. They should slowly dry without changing their basic shape or size in any significant way. Again, the idea is to slowly encourage evaporation of the moisture in the flowers. 

Do not add any more water to your container, rather, allow the water to slowly evaporate.

Once your hydrangea flowers have fully dried they are ready for wreath making. If you are interested in how to make a dried hydrangea wreath, you might like to read my very popular blog post DIY: Autumn Hydrangea Wreath.

Happy wreath making!

Autumn Garden and a New (Second Hand) Lumix GH2

Hello Friends - have you ever had a desire to up your photography game?

For a long while now, I have been wanting a DSLR camera. I know - what have I been waiting for? Similarly, my journey from a film camera to a digital camera was a long one. I didn't start taking digital photos until 2008 and it was James that convinced me to give it a try. Our kids were already well versed in the new medium and there I was kicking and screaming, clutching my film camera.

But once I started learning how to take photographs with an LCD screen and seeing the quality of the digital images in comparison to film, there was of course, no going back.

My first digital camera was a Lumix DMC-TZ3 with a 10x optical zoom and a macro setting. I know it doesn't sound like anything much these days but it was a great improvement for me at the time. A couple of years later I got my second Lumix model - the DMC-ZS25 which has a 20x zoom. Both the DMC-TZ3 and the DMC-ZS25 are basic pocket-style cameras with both auto and manual capabilities. I have been happy with how easy they are to use and impressed with the image quality but knew some day I would upgrade to a DSLR.

That day finally arrived about two weeks ago when James and I had an opportunity to purchase a second hand Lumix GH2 in mint condition. The GH2 originally was sold with a standard 14-42 mm lens but the seller was also including a 45-200mm lens which definitely sweetened the deal.

On the ride home that day with our newest Lumix, I was thinking about how much I am going to enjoy having a bigger sensor, a telephoto lens and improved image quality.

Once home I thought it would be fun to take my new camera out in the garden for a test run and attempt to capture the last of the autumn season.

The GH2 has a lot of bells and whistles so beforehand James and I set up the features to our liking and I put it on 'Program AE Mode' and headed out the door. I figured it was best to just start intuitively taking photos based on what I already know how to do just to see what I could accomplish without over thinking or over analyzing the process. And here are the results:

Depth of field is one of the most sought after effects for photographers and something I would like to work on with the GH2. The Program AE Mode is very responsive to a shallow depth of field which made it easy for me to focus on whatever aspect within the composition area that I wanted it to.

I think my next step is to learn how to use the Program Shift feature. Program Shift exists in Program AE Mode and I can make the background more blurred by manually decreasing the aperture value. That idea sounds appealing and I'm also interested in learning how to get the 'bokah' effect. So, we'll see!

It's been a very long time since I experimented with photography. At a very young age I had a dream that one day I might become a photographer. It's a bit embarrassing but I still have my eighth grade autobiography where I confessed this desire!

In part six, 'Ambition' I wrote:

My career is maybe someday I'd like to be a photographer. My sister and brother are photographers now. They both have real nice cameras. I'd like to get a Miranda camera with a photo lens. I've had experience with photography already. I've been to Mayfair school with my sister because she went their for 2 years. She showed me how to enlarge pictures and the steps in developing pictures. It is very interesting. The reason I would like to be a photographer is because it is a interesting hobby to have. Its fun taking pictures of anything and everything.

I have a vague memory of that time period at Mayfair College with my sister Joyce. A more vivid memory is spending a month learning photography and film developing at my brother Larry's apartment one summer a year or two after the Mayfair College experience.

Larry and his roommate Sam had set up a dark room in their spare bedroom and they loaned me a 35mm single lens reflex camera (I don't remember what brand) and free reign to take it with me wherever I went. Both Larry and Sam taught me film developing and before long I was processing on my own.

Years later I took photography classes in junior college. I used one of the Yashicamat cameras on loan from the school library. The Yashicamat is a twin-lens reflex camera and formatted for 120 film.

The first camera I ever owned was a 35mm Olympus OM-1 SLR which was gifted to me by an old boyfriend. I remember being thrilled about the built in light meter. I used the OM-1 for a long time until it was stolen in a house burglery. After that I used James' 35mm Canon Sure Shot (with auto focus!) for years. I think we went through two of those before we got our first digital camera, the Lumix DMC-TZ3, mentioned at the beginning of this post.

With the Lumix GH2 I am entering into a new phase of photography and excited about the prospects of surfing on a new wave. Now I can't wait for spring and the promise of a new season of garden photography.

As always, thank for reading!

Autumn Gardening

    There is always something to do in the garden, especially when the seasons change.  And now that autumn is in full swing here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, I recently spent some time harvesting the last of the green tomatoes, planting spring bulbs (crocus and muscari), potting a chrysanthemum, and cutting the last of the hydrangea blooms.   

And of course when I am in my garden, I can't help but notice what this wonderful change of season has brought into my little part of the world.  I love to photograph these fleeting glimpses of what will soon be a memory and share them here.  I hope you enjoy this photo gallery:

A myriad of leaves to be raked:

The shelf fungus is active again:

The birds, like this wren, are returning for their winter stay:

(photo by Editor James Aōyama)

The absolute last of the dahlias:

The hydrangea before the cutting:

And lastly, I love to 'bring the outdoors in' and so I made a little bowl of flowers for the kitchen table, and the vase of dried hydrangeas is a previous cutting from the same bush shown above:

Do you like to garden?  Or maybe do you like to photograph flowers or other plants or animals in your local park or wildlife refuge?  Tell me about it!