5 ways to decorate with Hydrangeas

Today, I’m delighted to introduce you to one of my favourite flowers, the hydrangea.

I love it for its simplicity, ease of styling with, and of course its beautiful range of colours.

There are hydrangeas in pink, purple, red, green, blue and brown. Hydrangeas also come in a variety of shapes and petal configurations.

I have managed to photograph most of the flower colours in this post, and will be showing you 5 ways to decorate with hydrangeas.

I start off with the simple white hydrangeas above. These were freshly cut from my back garden.Style 1:  SIMPLICITY.

White hydrangeas look great when grouped together in a simple glass vase, with or without their foliage.

I placed my garden blooms in a round fish bowl vase, to decorate the kitchen table for tea.Here’s another white bunch of hydrangeas in a simple vase. Do you also notice its subtle light green hue?

This was spotted at London Fashion week’s main show event space. Many similar bouquets were used on the window sills, to decorate and soften the industrial look of the venue.

The hydrangea foliage have been removed and replaced with a few similar coloured ranunculi.Style 2: ECLECTIC.

White hydrangeas look great grouped together, but they also stand out when mixed with pops of colours.

This was a photo I took during a design house tour in London.

The flowers were placed in vintage vases of different sizes and colours on a mantelpiece. They were set against a mirror to create depth.

Similar vases can be bought from flea markets, charity shops and car boot sales.I love how the hydrangeas have been mixed with pink coral peonies and red or orange roses.

There was no set rule to the styling of this look.

Fill each vase with one or two floral stems of varied lengths, to create a layered look.Add different textures of foliage to create an eclectic feel.Style 3: ELEGANT.

Now for the colourful hydrangeas. How many colours can you spot?

I see reds, dark pinks, purples and blues. Don’t they look elegant in that tall, gold vase?

The different colours of hydrangeas combine well with the smaller roses of similar shades.Gorgeous tones of reds, pinks purples and blues.Style 4: VINTAGE.

The wonderful thing about hydrangeas are that they are robust and easy to care for.

Often they are able to maintain their shapes when the water runs out, making them perfect flowers for drying.

Apparently there are two different groups of hydrangeas. There are those that you get during the first half of the year, these are the white, blue, pink and purple hydrangeas. Then, you get the ‘colour changed’ hydrangeas that were left to develop in the greenhouse, during the second half of the year. The latter are the darker green, red and brown tone varieties.

The ‘colour changed’ hydrangeas are apparently the ones good for drying. You can see an example of these hydrangeas on the kitchen worktop in the image above.Here’s a closer look. Such a cosy Autumnal vibe, don’t you think?
You can see more of the dried hydrangeas in the blue dresser in the distance.

This time, rather than using fresh foliage, mix and match them with dried twigs.Style 5: FESTIVE.

Here is another idea.

How about a hydrangea Christmas wreath? I created this about 3 Christmases ago. I only placed the hydrangeas on the wreath the day before the Christmas party, in fear of them wilting.

Now that I have learned about the ‘colour changed’ variety of hydrangeas that I can dry, I shall be using them for my next wreath.

Hope you have enjoyed this post. You can find out more information on how to care for your hydrangeas over on funnyhowflowersdothat.co.uk.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

( All the photography in this post is by me, Geraldine Tan, editor of Little Big Bell. This is a collaborative post with funnyhowflowersdothat.co.uk. All opinions are my own).