Save My Hydrangeas!
Garden know how is important when trying to get the most abundant bloom from your hydrangeas. Hydrangeas are difficult to prune. Hydrangea flower color is effected by soil treatment and fertilizer. Hydrangeas are also choosy about what kind of light conditions they will do best in-partial shade is just the beginning.The following notes are meant to help guide you with your different hydrangea plants so you will get the most out of them.
Hydrangeas come in several varieties. Hydrangea arborescence-one type of hydrangea-are sometimes called snow ball bush because of their white flowers and they bloom on new wood. Hydrangea arborescence varieties flower on “new” wood and should be pruned in Autumn. The stalks that these put out in the spring will bloom. The popular tree like hydrangeas are also white and are called paniculata hydrangeas and they benefit from fall pruning. Seems simple: white flowers, prune in fall.
It gets more complicated when you realize that there are other kinds of hydrangeas called hydrangea macrophyllas-these are the kind of hydrangeas that have lovely magenta to bright blue flowers Hydrangea macrophyllas bloom on “old” wood and can ONLY be pruned before Mid-July the year before. I did say this would be somewhat difficult, but not impossible?There is also oakleaf hydrangea which is also an “old” wood bloomer. So when would you prune it?? That’s right-summer before-so confusing.
There are a few things you need to do in order to promote your hydrangea macrophyllas to bloom in pink or blue. In order to get blue blooms you will have to improve the acidity of your soil pH. You can use pine needles, and throw down a bunch of pennies or rusty nails(yeah, my thought exactly)to help acheive this. Changing the pH of your soil from alkaline to acid is a lot of hard work and does not usually go so well. If pink hydrangeas are the goal then try to remove aluminum from you soil by decreasing the acidity pH. Incidentally if you can’t get them to bloom in exactly the right color you were hoping for you can always put a few glass gazing balls on ornamental metal stands in the hydrangea bushes in blue or pink to get the color that way. These will look good and provide the hint of color you were attempting to get minus all the hard work.
Unhealthy looking hydrangeas are probably getting too much sun or too much shade. Partial shade is recommended for hydrangea plants. Full sun is not recommended for hydrangeas as they will look unhealthy and not do well. They can survive in full shade but will be virtually with out flowers. They do best when they are plante in a spot that gets morning sun and PM shade. And as the name suggests they do not do well in drought(dry) conditions so remember to water them regularly and they should grow so abundantly you can use them as a hedge to hide an unsightly air conditioning unit, or plant them around the base of a recycled glass bird feeder to hide all the spent seeds.
These tips are meant to help you achieve all your hydrangea bloom dreams. It is imprtant to have some information about what hydrangea plant you have before you prune or plant it. The bountiful bloom on these plants will be your reward if you can just follow these simple rules.
