Hydrangeas - pruning!

[CaroleF]

My husband and I have a constant battle over his pruning of our Hydrangea bushes. It's the one thing that will grow extremely well in our alkaline soil. I keep telling him that the flowers from next year will come from this year's growth. Each Autumn and also Spring, he will attack the bushes - he has a dread of anything spilling over onto his lawn! We have a smallish walled garden and in the past had wonderful displays of hydrangeas. There is one hydrangea that I persuaded him not to touch last year - one lovely dark pink one called Elizabeth - the name of our younger daughter. The previous year it was suffering from his over pruning and only had about four or five blooms at the top of the bush. This year it's full of buds as he left it alone. We have just had yet another conversation about a small bush on the same side of the garden which has five flowers on it - I've just counted - and nothing else. I know why this happens. For about the last four or so years he's not as involved in the family business has he used to be. Then he was working so much he didn't have time to worry about the garden - apart from the lawn - and flowers were allowed to spill onto the lawn. Now he's not so occupied and as he can't sit still for five minutes, when he's nothing else to do, out come the pruning shears and he goes out to 'tidy things up'!

I assume I'm right that over pruning on plants like Hydrangeas, and Orange blossom also comes to mind means no blooms. We have a wonderful Orange blossom bush, full of leaves, never any flowers as he 'tidies it up' each year. He won't believe me that it's his pruning that leaves us 'flowerless'. Any tips from you enthusiastic gardeners?

Carole

[anniec]

You are correct. Show him this: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=516

Confiscate his secateurs. Good luck!

[oldbluefox]

Well Carole, I'm no expert gardener; in fact the best bit of Gardeners World is watching Nigel. However I do manage to get a good display from my hydrangeas. I leave them alone over winter, don't remove the flower heads. In the springtime I wait until they have some decent buds and then I am pretty brutal and cut them back about two thirds or just above a couple of buds. It sounds brutal but it encourages the plant to throw out new shoots. After that I leave them alone till the following spring. Trouble is if you don't cut them back they become bigger and bigger and take up too much space.
Another tip I got from my father - if you want to propagate new plants cut off a nice shoot about 6" long, remove the leaves except for the top three or four and dip the cutting in, wait for it, custard powder!!! I didn't believe it but we had a lovely hydrangea which had to be dug up when we had some work done around the back so I took a few cuttings, some in root hormone powder and the rest in custard powder and the custard powder ones fared the best.
Tell your husband to leave those hydrangeas alone and then he can really have a go at them next year.