How To Prune Hydrangeas
How you prune a Hydrangea will depend on the variety, and whether it blooms on "old wood" or "new wood". Below are instruction for pruning some of the most popular hydrangea varieties, or should we say: our favorites.
Endless Summer Hydrangea
Endless Summer Hydrangeas are very forgiving and will not suffer if left unpruned, or if pruned at the wrong time. In fact, young, recently planted shrubs are best left alone. Unlike other hydrangeas, your Endless Summer will bloom on both old and new wood. As the shrub matures, some pruning, to remove a stray, broken, or dead branch, may be required. Prune just as new growth is emerging in Spring.
French Hydrangeas
These are the hydrangeas that produce the large, round clusters of blue, pink, white or red flowers during Summer.
The large flowering French Hydrangeas bloom on the growth they put on the previous summer. This means that even though it is tempting to cut them back in the winter when they are only bare sticks jutting out of the ground, if you do that you will have no flowers next season. The flower bud are already formed and hidden in those bare sticks, so don't cut them off if you want flowers.
French Hydrangeas should be pruned right after they flower when the color of the blooms start to fade. This will mean pruning them during the hottest part of the summer, but it is the only time you can do it and still have them form new flower buds for next year. Reach down into the bush and cut off the stems to about a foot high, right above a bud. The plant will put out new growth and form a nice round ball shaped bush. Don't trim the plants after the 1st of September or they won't have time to put on new growth before frost.
Hydrangea 'Macrophyllum' Varieties (Lacecaps, such as 'Lady In Red')
Pruning is not necessary. If you want to prune to improve the shape of the plant, be careful to prune shortly AFTER flowering because flower buds are formed on the previous season's growth. Prune these hydrangeas only in the summer before July/August to be sure that you are not cutting off the stems that hold the flower buds for the next season. This hydrangea blooms on OLD WOOD, stems that have been on the hydrangea for at least 9-10 months, and sets its flower buds in late Summer/early Fall for blooms the following spring. For older plants, older than 4-6 years old, the general rule is to remove about a third of the old wood by cutting them down at ground level during the summer. This allows for more light into the plant and it helps revitalize the plant’s new growth.
Oakleaf Hydrangeas
Oakleaf varieties can be left unpruned indefinitely. However, if and when it does become necessary to prune, this is best done in late Summer or early Fall, at any time after it has finished blooming. Any pruning is merely done to limit size or for aesthetic shaping. Fall pruning reduces size of next years blossoms. Oakleaf Hydrangea can be pruned in Spring, though there is a risk of losing buds. However, if there are buds left after Spring pruning, the blossoms will be larger. No pruning at all simply produces more but smaller blooms.
Hydrangea Paniculata Varieties (PeeGee)
Paniculata hydrangeas can be left unpruned indefinitely. However, if and when it does become necessary to prune, this is best done in late Summer, early Fall or Spring, at any time after it has finished blooming. Any pruning is merely done to limit size or for aesthetic shaping by removing stray, broken, dead or crossing branches. Paniculata hydrangeas are the only hydrangeas that can be pruned into a tree-form. To tree-form, simply remove lower branches by cutting them as close as possible to a trunk. If there are more trunks than you like, these can be removed as well by cutting them to the ground. Just be careful to notice how the removal of a trunk will effect the canopy.
TIP:
Use the SEARCH at the top of every page on the web site to locate any specific shrub. Once you have located the shrub in the Search, click to go to its Plant File. In the Plant File you will find pruning instruction for that shrub.
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