Is Your Hydrangea Drooping? This Garden Expert Shares How to Fix It

Because of their beauty, hydrangeas are quite versatile and popular flowers to grow in gardens, but they are also quite delicate—and their best qualities are wasted when they wilt.

There are many reasons why hydrangeas may begin to wilt. One of the main causes is water stress, which can be caused by overwatering or underwatering.

Hydrangeas are flowers that need consistent watering to thrive. You can tell if your hydrangeas are under-watered by checking to see if the soil around the plant is dry, the leaves are wilting, or the flowers are scorched.

Conversely, overwatering can cause yellow leaves. But that’s not the only reason hydrangeas wilt.

Bethie, or @blueacregarden on TikTok, is a certified master gardener in zone 6B. In a video about hydrangea care, she says, “The flowers wilt when your plants are exposed to strong afternoon sun or really, really hot days.”

Bethie says in the video that you’ll want to “water your hydrangeas really, really deeply every other day” to combat this wilting. She notes that this will bring back the blooms overnight—but act quickly. Days of wilting can cause the flowers to turn brown and brittle.

According to Bethie, hydrangeas take Hydra The name is a serious one. If your flowers are burnt and turning brown, you can prune them by cutting off the spent flowers and, as Bethie says, “they’ll be better next year.”

Other Hydrangea Problems to Watch Out For

While wilting hydrangeas can be quite common, it’s not the only way your blooms will die.

• If you see spots on the leaves that are not caused by sunburn, your plant may have a disease.
• Pests like aphids, spider mites, and scale insects can suck the energy out of your hydrangea and leave it looking wilted.
• Diseases like powdery mildew and root rot can also cause your plant to look less vibrant than usual.

In her video, Bethie shows a hydrangea plant with leaf spot, which can manifest as “purple-brown spots that turn pale grayish-brown in the center as the plant ages,” she says.

To treat, use a fungicide, avoid overwatering, and water in the morning so the leaves dry out during the day and don’t get wet, says Bethie.

Whether your hydrangeas are wilting or blooming toward the sun, you should keep an eye on their growth. After all, a wilting day can be fixed—a wilting week cannot.