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The Challenge Of Getting Hydrangeas To Flower Abundantly!

One must have some gardening knowledge when it comes to having abundant blooms with hydrangeas. Lot’s of flowers on your hydrangea can be a slippery pruning challenge. Hydrangea bloom color 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.

There are quite a few hydrangea plant types and varieties. Hydrangea arborescence-one type of hydrangea-are sometimes called snow ball bush because of their white flowers and they bloom on new wood. Because hydrangea arborescence varieties bloom on “new” wood they can be pruned in the fall. These hydrangeas bloom on the new growth that comes up in the spring. Paniculata hydrangeas are an ornamental tree form hydrangea that should be trimmed in the fall as well. Simple rule to follow: white blooms, fall prune.

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 light pink to dark blue flowers Hydrangea macrophyllas bloom on “old” wood and can ONLY be pruned before Mid-July the year before. I did say this would be somewhat difficult, but not impossible?Let’s not forget oakleaf hydrangeas which are “old” wood growth bloomers. When is the optimal time to prune?? That’s right-summer before-so confusing.

There are a few things you can try in order to promote the pink or blueness of your flowers. Add aluminum and increase soil acidity in order to obtain blue flowers on your hydrangeas. You can use pine needles, and throw down a bunch of pennies or rusty nails(yeah, my thought exactly)to help acheive this. Attempting to alter the pH of soil is hard work that does not always pay off. Soils with less acidity and less aluminum produce pink hydrangea flowers. 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 designer gazing ball 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.

Hydrangeas have very special light requirements and can look bad if they are not in the right location. Hydrangeas should be planted in partially shaded areas of the garden. Full sun is not recommended for hydrangeas as they will look wilted and not do well. They will live in full shade, but they won’t look good in full shade. Hydrangeas do best when they are plante in a spot that gets morning sun and PM 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.

Hopefully these steps will increase the blooms on your hydrangeas. Clearly it is of utmost importance to be armed with some information about what kind of hydrangea plant you are dealing with before you even touch your plant or the soil around it. Once you are armed with this insider knowledge you won’t be afraid to incorporate these lovely flowering shrubs into your garden because they are indeed glorious.