How to Care for Your Hydrangea Plants

Hydrangeas have a romantic charm that turns simple gardens into scenes from a fairytale.

 

Hydrangeas never seem to go out of style. They’re so timeless and beautiful! Their voluminous blooms bring a sense of romance and vintage charm to the scenery and are perfect for cut bouquets. These mega-popular landscape plants are relatively easy to care for—it’s just a matter of understanding their basic requirements. Here’s everything you need to know about how to plant and grow hydrangeas for long-lasting color and visual impact that never fails to impress. 

 

Hydrangea Care: Sun or Shade? 

Hydrangeas have the most success in locations that receive direct sunlight in the morning, followed by some afternoon shade. If you plant your hydrangea in full shade, they won’t bloom very much. Direct afternoon sun can stress out these moisture-loving plants, evaporating the soil moisture too quickly and scorching their lovely leaves. An east-facing spot is an ideal location for your hydrangea. We recommend spreading some mulch across the soil surface to help block the sun from drying up the soil. 

Plant your shrub in fall or early spring to prevent the roots from getting shocked by hot soil. Cool soil temperatures and frequent watering will help make the transition into the ground smooth and stress-free! 

 

Watering and Fertilizing Your Hydrangea Plant 

 Hydrangeas like consistently moist soil, but good drainage is essential. If the water collects at the root level and doesn’t drain, your plant may develop root rot, which is very hard to treat. Mixing lots of compost into the soil before you plant your hydrangea will help to improve drainage and moisture retention, reducing the risk of root rot. 

If we aren’t receiving much rain, you should water your hydrangea generously 2–3 times a week. Watering deeply and less frequently will provide much better results than watering a little bit each day. Fertilize once in late March and again in July with a balanced, all-purpose fertilizer. 

 

How Do You Keep Hydrangeas Blooming?

Deadheading spent blooms will help encourage reblooming. Using a pair of sterilized hand pruners, clip off the flower heads along the stem, just above their first set of leaves. This way, your plant won’t waste any energy on its old flowers and will be able to direct its energy towards new, fresh blooms.

 

When to Prune Hydrangea Plants

There are several different varieties of hydrangea plants, but they all fall into one of two categories: spring-flowering shrubs that bloom on old wood and summer-flowering shrubs that bloom on new wood. Figure out what kind you have before you begin pruning—you must time it correctly to ensure you don’t lose out on future blooms! 

Prune spring-blooming varieties like Bigleaf and Oakleaf in summer after they’ve finished blooming. If you prune them in spring, you’ll remove all the flower buds and get nothing but foliage. 

Summer-blooming varieties like Annabelle and Limelight should be pruned in early spring or late winter—sometime around March before their spring growth spurt begins. Flower buds emerge from new spring growth, so you won’t have to worry about pruning them off if you trim them before the growing season starts. 

 

Changing the Color of Your Hydrangea 

You may have heard that you can change the color of your plant’s blooms by modifying the pH levels in the soil; this is true, but it only works for Hydrangea macrophylla, the “Mophead” varieties. Blue flowers result from acidic soil and pink flowers from alkaline soil. Dolomitic lime will make your soil more alkaline if you want to change your flowers to pink, and aluminum sulfate or peat moss will acidify the soil to create bright blue blooms. We recommend testing the pH of your soil before adding anything to it so that you can accurately determine how much to apply and keep your soil healthy.

 

Now that you know how to maintain a hydrangea plant, visit Primex Garden Center to explore the incredible hydrangeas for sale in Pennsylvania! You’ll love how these dreamy blooming shrubs transform your landscape into a scene from the pages of a fairytale storybook.