To ensure your garden is receiving huge blooms this summer, you may need to prep your plants now.
Pruning is a key step to maintaining a healthy garden. Plants need to be pruned at different times of year depending on the type, so it’s important to know what’s best for your garden.
Pruning at the incorrect time can damage the buds.
Nancy Mattia, a writer for MarthaStewart.com, wrote hydrangeas are fairly durable flowers, but they need gentle pruning to stay healthy.
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She wrote: “Prune at the wrong time, and you could be inadvertently cutting into next season's flowers.”
There are two ways hydrangea flowers bloom: on old wood and on new wood. The different kinds require different blooming methods.
New wood
Hydrangeas that bloom on new wood set their flower buds in the spring, eventually blooming in the summer.
The most important thing to remember with these buds is to avoid pruning when the flower buds are opening. That means you should prune in early spring, before the next flowers bud and after the plant has finished its most recent flowering.
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The hydrangea varieties that bloom on new wood are smooth hydrangeas and panicle hydrangeas.
Old wood
Hydrangeas that bloom on old wood produce flower buds in late summer, meaning they bloom in the fall or winter.
These types shouldn’t be pruned until mid summer, after the last flowering but before new buds form. If you prune too late in the year, you’ll remove new buds before they can bloom.
The hydrangea types that bloom on old wood is bigleaf, oakleaf, and climbing hydrangeas.
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