hydrangea pruning

How hard can you prune hydrangeas and if i do will they still flower next summer?

If you prune them now you are likely to lose next years flowers-the buds form behind this years

What you could do is prune half one year and half the second year-but I have never pruned mine

seems to be a mixed view on this, so i think i will play safe and leave well alone.many thanks.

This advice applies to Hydrangea macrophylla, the big mop headed and Lace cap Hydrangeas which are fairly common. However, if, like us. you grow the H. paniculata and arborescens types (H. g. Annabelle for example) then these may be cut as hard as you like in February.

The difference is where the flowers are formed, on this type they flower on new wood, so pruning back actually improves the flowering.

Many thanks Berghill

I savage my mophead hydrangeas back every year after they finish flowering and just make sure I cut above obviously developing buds.

Over the next couple of years I am going to be rather more brutal to them, in rotation, just so I can have other things in the garden as each year they are still coming back larger and with more flowers!

Savaging them will simply make them grow more.

If you want to reduce the size, take out a third of the oldest branches every year in rotation.

I started doing that last year too, hopefully I'll start to see some reduction in overall size next year or there shall be a secateur massaceur...