Care For Hydrangeas
Garden know is essential if you want your hydrangeas to bloom and bloom. Hydrangeas are difficult to prune. Hydrangea flower hue 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 tips are intended to assist you in pruning and caring for your hydrangeas for optimal bloom.
Hydrangeas come in a few different varieties. One type is called hydrangea arborescence which usually have big white snow balls on them-these hydrangeas bloom on “new” wood. Because hydrangea arborescence varieties bloom on “new” wood they can be pruned in the fall. 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 purple, pink to light or dark blue flowers Hydrangea macrophyllas bloom on “old” wood and can ONLY be pruned before Mid-July the year before. Do not fret about how difficult this might seem?And probably not last but certainly not least is oakleaf hydrangea which blooms on “old” wood. When is the optimal time to prune?? Before mid july or no later than august the summer before.
There are a few things you can try in order to influence the pink or blueness of your flowers. In order to get blue blooms you will need to increase the acidity of your soil pH. Throw some pennies around the bottom of your hydrangea and add some pine needle mulch to increase the acidity. Changing the pH of your soil from alkaline to acid is a lot of hard work and does not usually go so well. Less acidic soil will promote your hydrangea plant to produce pinker blooms. Incidentally if you can’t get them to bloom in exactly the right color you were hoping for you can always put a few gazing balls on metal stands in the hydrangea bushes in blue or pink to get the color that way. It looks nice and gives you the color accent you are looking for without all the hard labor of transforming your soil pH.
If your hydrangeas are still looking kind of tired out it is likely that they are not getting the correct kind of light. Hydrangeas need part shade. If you plant hydrangeas in full sun they won’t die, but you might wish they had. They will live in full shade, but they won’t look good in full shade. They specifically need morning sun and afternoon 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 bird feeder to hide all the spent seeds.
These tips are meant to help you achieve all your hydrangea bloom dreams. It is helpfull to have some information about the type of hydrangea you are dealing with before you do anything. The bountiful bloom on these plants will be your reward if you can just follow these simple rules.
