I'm a bit confused Verdun. My mum had hydrangeas (macrophylla types) and she always cut off the flowerheads in early spring just to the first healthy bud. For most hydrangeas that would be what I would do (also remove a third of older, less productive stems if they're no longer flowering on older shrubs perhaps). But you have said to Upto to cut their hydrangea down as low as they like? My reason for asking is that I have just started helping an elderly neighbour in her garden and she has a small hydrangea macrophylla, which was only about 6 thin stems about 2ft high which she told me to cut right down to the ground! I double checked but she said she always does this to the whole plant! It had dead flowers on so it must reflower after such hard pruning which I am really surprised by. I looked up the butterfly hydrangea but it has panicles rather than the shape in Upto's photo so now I'm really confused because Upto's looks like a mophead which the Butterfly isn't, it's a paniculata. Please, please help me
Exactly what I thought Verdun, thank you. Confusion arose because Upto's dead flowerheads don't look like PG's and neither did my neighbour's, they look like macro's.
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No worries Uptome
Thank you lydiaann looks like we are all agreed March is the time to start many thanks
I could suggest that when you prune the hydrangea that you cut the stems into more of a ball shape, rather than all one height. Up to you of course.
I'm a bit confused Verdun. My mum had hydrangeas (macrophylla types) and she always cut off the flowerheads in early spring just to the first healthy bud. For most hydrangeas that would be what I would do (also remove a third of older, less productive stems if they're no longer flowering on older shrubs perhaps). But you have said to Upto to cut their hydrangea down as low as they like? My reason for asking is that I have just started helping an elderly neighbour in her garden and she has a small hydrangea macrophylla, which was only about 6 thin stems about 2ft high which she told me to cut right down to the ground! I double checked but she said she always does this to the whole plant! It had dead flowers on so it must reflower after such hard pruning which I am really surprised by. I looked up the butterfly hydrangea but it has panicles rather than the shape in Upto's photo so now I'm really confused because Upto's looks like a mophead which the Butterfly isn't, it's a paniculata. Please, please help me
Exactly what I thought Verdun, thank you. Confusion arose because Upto's dead flowerheads don't look like PG's and neither did my neighbour's, they look like macro's.