Preserving Hydrangea Blooms

We love hydrangeas at The Farm and we're always looking for ways to preserve them so that we can enjoy them year-round.  Many of our customers consider them their favorites too, so you'll find them tucked into our wreaths and arrangements throughout the shop.     Last weekend we traveled to Ohio Street Originals in Quincy, where our friend Deb Damhorst is our go-to expert on preserving flowers with glycerine.   

This is Deb's workbench where she preserves hundreds and hundreds of hydrangea blooms every season.  The blooms are bundled and placed in the glycerine solution where the stems will pull the solution up through the flower.  Eventually the water in the flower is replaced by the glycerine, leaving the bloom  soft, supple, and preserved.    And she sent  that bucket of beautiful blooms back to The Farm with us!  Here are a few more shots taken at OSO.

Beautiful bundles hanging for air-drying.  Deb grows and harvests all of her flowers from her own gardens.   Her husband Mark makes awesome willow furniture too.   The majority of their products are sold wholesale to vendors  and they also have a small retail shop that is open by appointment or chance.

A big big Thank You to Deb!  She was so friendly and so generous to share her experience and knowledge.  It was a great visit!   We can't wait to see how our own preserving experiments   turn out :)