planting foil wrapped hydrangeas

I feel so proud of myself for keeping these alive as long as I have that I want to blog about it.

Hydrangeas are my very favorite flowers. Our first house had two massive hydrangea plants that I brought fresh flowers inside from for as long as I could. I was so spoiled by the huge mature plants that required nothing from me.

Our new house came with azaleas and magnolias a plenty, but no hydrangea 🙁

Last year I got in a propagation kick and tried them from cuttings. The people who bought our old house graciously allowed me to come over and snag 4 trimmings for my attempt. Sadly, 3 died immediately and one gave me a bloom the size of my pinky nail that I promptly freaked out about….and then it died.

Buying mature plants (like bush sized) and planting them is another option, but I have seen others do it and watched their plants die in their landscaping so I’ve been hesitant. Large hydrangeas aren’t cheap!

This spring at Aldi I picked up these pretties for $4.99 each

I kept them alive for over a month inside, which is really a feat for me. I would say it was going on 6 weeks when they started looking a little sad. I wasn’t able to keep them watered enough so I knew they were ready to ditch the foil.

This was a whole new thing for me, I usually allow my foil wrapped poinsettias to end up in such a crispy state by Dec 26th I just throw in the trash. But Easter and spring came and went and I knew these weren’t meant for the trash!

I put them all three in one large pot and watered like crazy. I mean multiple times a day–and some leaves still got very crispy. Sadly the color looks like it bleached out, but they are growing!

Below is day one, two weeks later, then a full month after potting:

I am so curious if the new blooms will come in colorful or the green color I have now. Speaking of new blooms…I just spotted all this growth and the little buds yesterday:

 

Now the only thing I’m confused about is what I do with this once it gets cold (if you know please tell me!). My hope is it can be transported into the ground eventually then I’ll start all over with more cheap foil hydrangeas for Easter next year 🙂

UPDATE – They did well all summer! Once it was cold I dug them up out of the big planted and moved them to their (hopefully) permanent location in the back yard. As of March I saw nothing but dead looking sticks but a few weeks ago I saw tiny signs of life! Little one inch green leaves all over the 3 inch tall sticks!

Slowly but surely these things just may make it! Photo update to come when they fill out a bit more.