Following just a few simple growing tips for hydrangea will produce healthy plants with fluffy colorful blooms year after year.
You can plant hydrangeas in early spring or in the fall. When planting a Hydrangea, remember that the blooms and stems must be protected from strong winds and the hot afternoon sun. Planting them in open areas with strong winds could break stems. To protect them, plant hydrageas on the eastern side of a building or structure to ensure that, in the afternoon, when the sun is at its hottest, your Hydragea plants are in the shade.
Make sure your hydragea's roots have good drainage. If the soil is too wet, the roots might rot, causing the plant to die. Incorporate generous amounts of organic matter and an all-purpose, slow-release fertilizer into the soil to give your hydrangea a strong start.
Hydrangeas can live for many years without ever needing to be pruned, but if your shrubs grow out of bounds or lose flowering vigor, then there are some essential pruning guidelines you should follow to ensure bountiful blooms the next year.
These generally bloom on old wood and require little pruning. Prune spent blooms immediately after flowering (midsummer), or remove only dead, damaged or unsightly wood.
Hydrangea macrophylla (Bigleaf, Mophead, or Lacecap Hydrangeas)
These Hydrangeas begin blooming in early to midsummer and can continue until summer's end, so they set their bloom buds during late summer or early fall. When pruning mopheads, you have two options, and will probably end up doing a combination of both:
Exception: If you have a reblooming variety such as Penny Mac that flowers on new wood as well as old wood, you'll want to prune a little every year just to keep the new wood coming.
Hydrangea quercifolia (Oakleaf Hydrangea)
You can get away without pruning Oakleaf Hydrageas at all, but if you want to keep them well-shaped, cut dead stems back at the base in late winter or early spring.
These shrubs bloom on new wood and actually produce larger blooms if cut back to the ground in late winter.
SHOP FOR HYDRAGEASHydrangea arborescens (Smooth Hydrangea)
This is one of the easiest Hydrangeas to prune. Because it blooms only on new wood, you can just cut it back to the ground in late winter, before any new buds appear. If you experience some flopping of flowering branches, then leave a framework of old growth to help support the branches by only cutting stems back to 2 feet from the ground.
Hydrangea paniculata (Pee Gee or Panicle Hydrangeas)
Prune this Hydrangea in late winter to keep the plants from becoming overgrown and encourage more new growth, more flower buds, and larger blooms. You can remove dead flowers, as soon as they become unattractive and clean up the overall shape of the plant.
Hydrangeas may produce pink, blue, or lavender blooms, depending on where it’s planted and how it’s fed. The presence of aluminum in the plant ultimately determines the color, and pH affects the uptake of aluminum. Alkaline soils, pH of 6.0 or more, are more likely to produce pink blooms, and more acidic soils, pH 4.5 to 5.5, produce blue flowers.
Pink hydrangeas can be turned blue by applying aluminum sulfate to lower the pH and add aluminum to the soil. Applying lime to raise the pH level will help blue hydrangeas turn pink. If your soil naturally produces very blue or very pink hydrangea flowers, you may need to grow your hydrangeas in containers or raised beds to achieve the desired color. If you do attempt to change the color of your blooms by adding these minerals, dilute them well, and add sparingly. It is very easy to scorch your plants by adding too much. White hydrangeas are not affected by efforts to change bloom color.
