Almost all gardeners love the low drama maintenance and care of hydrangeas which is why they are found so often in many homes. They are the perfect plant for beginning gardeners as well as experts because of how easy it is to take care of them. If you’re ready to save some money on regularly buying plants from your nursery or if you simply want to capitalize upon a beautiful hydrangea that you already have in your yard, you can grow hydrangeas from seeds.

It is quite simple to grow a new hydrangea from seed. This process is called propagating. It’s quite exciting because a seed grown hydrangea is going to be a unique hydrangea and it won’t simply be a clone of an existing plant that you already have like it would be were you to propagate from a cutting.

Effectively each seed grown hydrangea is going to be a new plant for you and exciting experience.

How to collect hydrangea seeds

The first thing you have to do is to collect the seeds. Hydrangeas produce the seeds in the enormous flowers but the seeds are actually quite small. The seeds are typically no larger than the size of a cracked peppercorn.

Once your hydrangea shrub has bloomed, you want to allow the flowers an additional 8 to 12 weeks in order to fade and dry out. This is the ideal time to cut the flower heads off and placed them inside of a brown paper bag. You will want to collect several of these flowers and put them in several separate bags.

After the hydrangea flowers are in their respective bags, allow them to sit for an additional 3 to 7 days to properly dry out.

Once they have perfectly dried you can shake the bag, but be sure to hold it tight. Shaking the bag will loosen the seeds from the flowers. When you look inside the bag the seeds are very small so they will be slightly challenging to identify but so long as there’s nothing else in the bag except for the flower you’ll know when you see them.

When to plant hydrangea seeds

When you are ready with your collected seeds it’s time to germinate. You can sow the seeds after you have collected them or you can store them in a plastic bag and keep them cool until spring and start the germination process during the Spring. Regardless of which time you decide to germinate, the steps you follow are going to be the same:

1. Place the seeds in potting soil, inside of a container that is already been filled with soil. The seeds should simply be set on top of the soil. You don’t want to bury them under the soil or mix them in with the dirt.
2. Make sure that the soil is well-drained but that you keep it moist the entire time.
3. Put the containers in a sunny area they will be exposed to direct sunlight but protected from the wind.
4. After you see the transformation from young seedling to small plants, you should follow the same steps you would grow your hydrangea from a cutting by transferring the propagated plant directly to your garden or a container.

How long does it take to grow hydrangeas from seed? Approximately 14 months. After that, you can use a rooting hormone to help move the recently cultivated plant into the ground or into your selected pots. A rooting hormone will help the roots to take hold in their new environment and establish themselves.

Image by Selma K from Pixabay