Pruning

Pruning Hydrangeas

ATTENTION: Pruning causes growth and not flowering.

Keep in mind that the budding for the flowers of next year takes place just beneath the flowerheads of this year. This means that by shortening or removing branches or stems you also cut off a number of flowers for next year. If the hydrangea in your garden is taken care of in the proper way, the plant will continue to grow bigger because the number of stems on which flowerheads can grow will increase.

When selecting a place for the hydrangea in your garden, you should take in account that a height and a diameter of one meter will be possible.

If a hydrangea has grown too tall or if you think that the branches and/or stems are too close upon each other, you can cut off some stems to the ground (thin out).
The so called 'pruning of the roots' is preferable too then. This means that you dig out the whole plant with rootball intact. In this way the roots are shortened.
If only the growth has to be limited it will do to cut the roots all round the plant with a spade. The closer you do this to the plant, the more growth will be limited.
If the height of the plant has to be reduced and you do not want to lose all flowerheads during one year or more years, you just prune some of the stems to the ground and leaving some to flower next year. Cutting back stems without cutting the roots can result in fast growing long stems. In this way the plant can not be kept under control, will get an undesirable size and, in contrast with that what you want, will just grow bigger and will have less flowers.

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