A sad looking hydrangea

We have a hydrangea shrub outside our front door which has really got too big. So big it was causing access to the front door difficult. I have trimmed it away from the path  but don't want to do anything which will spoil it. It has lovely pink flowers in the summer and now in autumn the flowers are turning dark red. I've always admired those hydrangeas which turn that lovely deep pinky red colour in autumn, so when we moved to this house two years ago and saw that we had inherited one I was really pleased.

A few weeks ago we had the front wall of our house repainted and after the painters had left I realised that they had leaned their ladder across the hydrangea breaking some of the branches and causing other branches to flop over.  My poor hydrangea was a sorry site.

I thought at first that this was a good opportunity to cut the shrub back more, but the damaged bits were on the other side away from the front door. However, I  cut the broken branches and put them in a vase in the house and have continued to cut the flower heads over the last few weeks. They make good cut flowers.

My house has been full of hydrangeas and I have realised that you can't get rid of them.  If they are put in a vase they don't die, they just dry out and can then be used in winter flower arrangements or Christmas wreaths.

So now as well as having vases of them in the house I have a store of dried heads in the shed waiting to be used for other things because I can't bear to get rid of them.