Hydrangeas are a fantastic choice for shady borders – creating structure and beautiful late-summer colour with their large flower heads and hugely bold foliage
Hydrangeas are the perfect pick for adding a touch of elegance to shady garden corners, with their lush foliage and impressive flower heads that come alive in late summer.
If you’re aiming for outstanding blooming from your hydrangeas year after year, smart pruning is the secret. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to understand the timing of trimming these plants, as waiting too long might not bode well.
There’s a whole variety of hydrangeas, each with specific pruning needs. Before you grab those secateurs, ensure you know exactly which type of hydrangea you’ve got in your garden.
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To identify a hydrangea, inspect its flowers – this is the most straightforward indicator. If you’re still unsure about what kind of hydrangea you own, let it flourish for a full season before you consider pruning.
On identifying her hydrangeas as the Annabelle species, also known as hydrangea arborescens, Jacqui Mundy took to social media for advice.
She requested guidance on the Hydrangeas in the UK Facebook group, posting a snapshot of her dormant plant and asked: “Could someone tell me please whether I can prune this Annabelle now please?”
Responses poured in, with the majority agreeing that it was the right time for pruning, reports the Express. Iris New reassured: “Yes, you should be fine to do them now. I have done mine.”
Andrea Davidson added her recent experience: “Did all my hydrangeas today cut them down to the new growing shoots.” Helen Sergeant offered some tailored advice saying: “It’s very leggy. You can trim down to a pair of leaves or bud and will still get some flowers this year.”
Notably, Andrea Lucas shared her proactive approach: “Cut mine down to just above ground level about two weeks ago and covered root dome with compost.
“Always done this in March and have been rewarded with fabulous big blooms. I live in West Midlands.”
Garden gurus concur that it’s high time for these hydrangeas to get a trim. The green-thumbed experts at Duchy of Cornwall Nursery assert that Annabelle hydrangeas ought to be pruned in “early spring before growth commences”.
They caution against neglecting the plant, explaining that failure to prune, or not cutting it back completely, results in numerous but “smaller and higher up” blooms.
Since Annabelle hydrangeas flourish on new wood, they’re best pruned by “cutting the whole plant back to the lowest pair of healthy buds”.
Effectively, this involves lopping off all stems almost to ground level, ending up with a compact, stubby framework.
