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Pruning hydrangea - help settle a debate!!
Help! I am in an all out battle with my mom/dh - I have a beautiful mophead hydrangea that my mom pruned to the ground last year (I was superduper PG - she thought she was helping). I was sick when I saw it! She insists that she researched it & that is what you are to do. I enacted a "hands off" policy this year and left the old wood branch/sticks.
Right now it has a good bit of green leaves/buds? on the "sticks". DH would not admit this was true until I marched him out there & showed him every single branch had growth. (he had been siding with my mom)
He wants to prune it now. I want to wait until it blooms/flowers.
Who is right?? I can post pics tomorrow if needed. Can't wait to hear your answers bc this has been a battle for a year & my mom & DH were prepared for it not to come back this year because I wanted to let it "wood".
I know these are not technical terms, I am a reformed black thumb who is trying to learn.
TIA!
Re: Pruning hydrangea - help settle a debate!!
You are both right. There are two types of hydrangea bushes. One type is old fashioned that must be allowed to "wood" in order to flower. The other must be radically pruned to keep blooming. Cut after the first bloom is done to encourage more growth to get a second bloom out of them
Unfortunately, I am not sure which a Mophead is. I don't have mopheads and don't know enough about them. When you buy the hydrangeas, they generally have the pruning instructions on the tag in the pot.
Don't prune it now unless the branch is dead.
I'm assuming you live in a northern climate, because here in zone 7, my hydrangeas are beginning to bloom right now. There are a few types of hydrangeas (more than 2) and most are southern staples. The hardiest one, the Annabelle, is a white mophead that behaves as a perennial in cold climates, meaning the foliage dies back to the ground, and it basically regrows an entire plant every year. You may have an Annabelle, but if it is sprouting green all along the twigs, as opposed to sprouting only from ground level, maybe not. In either case, google can help you narrow it down.
The kind of hydrangea that I have blooms on old wood. I don't do anything to it before the winter, and then in the spring I clip the dead blooms down to the next bud. I think mine are endless summer hydrangea.