Fall Colors: an Arrangement of Mophead Hydrangeas

Fall Colors: Pee Gee Hydrangea in the Front Border

For another post about how the pee gee hydrangea changes during the seasons, click here.

How to Prune Hydrangeas and Roses

As a clarification to yesterday's post on pruning shrubs, you only want to cut back the hydrangeas that grow on new wood. If you cut back the hydrangeas that grow on old wood, you'll be cutting off this year's flowers.

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For information on pruning hydrangeas that grow on old wood, check out this post:

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Hydrangeas: Why and How to Prune

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For those of you who asked about pruning roses, check out these posts:

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How to Prune Roses, Part I: An Introduction
How to Prune Roses, Part II: Old Rose Pruning Secrets
How to Prune Roses, Part III: Why Prune?

How and When to Prune Caryopteris, Spirea, Butterfly Bush, Pee Gee Hydrangea, Annabelle Hydrangea, Smokebush, Elderberry

After the "in like a lion" March first snow, we were blessed with "out like a lamb" seventy-degree spring weather this weekend. The whole family spent every waking minute outside and I took the opportunity to do some of my late winter shrub pruning. In my zone (6b), early March is the perfect time to prune the shrubs that are grown either for (i) flowers that bloom on new wood or (ii) foliage that is more vibrant on new wood.
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Some of the shrubs that I grow for flowers that bloom on new wood include caryopteris, spirea (pictured below), butterfly bush, pee gee hydrangea (pictured below) and annabelle hydrgangea. Some of the shrubs that I grow for foliage that is more vibrant on new wood includes smokebush (pictured below) and elderberry (or sambucas). As you can see in the pictures below, you can really cut these shrubs back significantly and by doing so, you will be rewarded with a greater number of blooms on your flowering shrubs and more vibrant color for your foliage shrubs.
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Does pruning these shrubs really make a difference? Yes! Last year, I cut back only some of the spirea and the difference between the pruned and unpruned was quite noticeable.

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Spirea before pruning

Spirea after pruning

Pee gee hydrangea after pruning

Smokebush after pruning

Hydrangea paniculata in the snow

Annabelle Hydrangea in the Snow

Hydrangeas in the Snow

After the Frost: Hydrangea Leaves

"Put the Pruners Down and Step Away": Autumn is not the Time to be Pruning your Roses and Hydrangeas

As a relatively new blogger, I'm still learning about all of the different blogging tools available. On Google Analytics, I've just figured out how to look at the keywords and web pages that visitors to my blog have been searching and reading.
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Much to my surprise, I've recently attracted a lot of traffic to my prior posts on pruning roses and hydrangeas. My advice? Wait until late winter/early spring. I do absolutely no pruning of hydrangeas at this time of year and the only pruning of roses that I do is either of completely dead wood or canes that have grown so tall that they are likely to break in the winter winds and damage the rest of the plant. For more information, click below:
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Hydrangeas: Why and How to Prune
How to Prune Roses, Part I: An Introduction
How to Prune Roses, Part II: Old Rose Pruning Secrets
How to Prune Roses, Part III: Why Prune?

Pee Gee Hydrangea: Four Seasons of Beauty

One of the many reasons I love hydrangeas is that they look good year-round (for a related post on year-round color, click here). Right now, their autumn colors are a highlight. See below some pictures of the pee gee hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) in the Front Border during all four seasons.

Autumn blooms turn pale green and pink.
Winter blooms turn light brown.
Spring after pruning (for a prior post about pruning pee gee hydrangeas, click here).
Summer blooms of brilliant white.

More Pictures of This Year's Beautiful Hydrangeas

I'm really enjoying the hydrangeas in my garden this year. Hydrangeas are great because they take so little work and get better year after year. The blooms on hydrangeas are fascinating to watch as their colors mature and change as the blooms age. Below are some pictures of some of the hydrangea in my garden that were not in my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post for July.

The first two pictures are of an unnamed lace cap hydrangea at the top of Goldberry Hill. Two winters ago this hydrangea was completely killed to the ground. Last summer it grew beautifully, but did not bloom. This year, its unbelievable--loaded with blossoms from head to toe. [Related post: the same lace cap hydrangea in the dead of winter.]

This annabelle hydrangea has been in bloom since June. The blossoms started green, turned white, and recently began turning back to green again. [Related posts: in the winter when it was brown and two weeks ago when it was white.]
This beautiful variegated hydrangea was a new addition to my Front Border last summer. I bought it out of flower for the leaves. I wasn't expecting much out of the flowers and actually thought they would take away from the leaves. But, I was wrong. I love the flowers too.

The pee gee hydrangea, which I posted about pruning back in late winter, is now just starting to bloom, though it is still a week or so away from its peak.

How to Propagate Hydrangea, Part II: Layering Marechal Foch

In completing my expanded Front Border, I wanted to repeat some of the plants that existed in some of the neighboring beds. This first picture is a large, mature hydrangea, which I think is Marechal Foch, across the driveway on Goldberry Hill.

As you see in the close up of the mature specimen, the leaves are thick and shiny. The mopheads change a lot over the course of the summer. Two weeks ago, in the the last picture on my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day post, the blooms were various shades of pink.

The third picture is the baby of Marechal Foch in the Front Border which I propagated last year by layering my mother plant.

Layering is one of the easiest ways to increase your number of hydrangea. Simply choose a low growing branch. Place it in contact with the soil by burying it a bit or putting a rock on top of it. Leave the branch alone, yet check every month or so to see if it has begun to form roots in the area touching the ground. Once roots are developed, sever it from the mother plant. The baby hydrangea can be then left in place to grow a bit more or moved to a new location, as I did with this one.

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Related post: How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part I: Taking Cuttings of Sister Theresa

How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part I: Taking Cuttings of Sister Theresa

I just planted a hedge of southern magnolias. To cover up the space between each, I thought I would plant more of my favorite hydrangea: Sister Theresa. I love this hydrangea for its large pure white mopheads.

The purity of the white is stunning: it has no of pink or cream. The flowers are quite large and the individual sepals are very big making the blooms more striking. In addition, Sister Theresa performs beautifully in full shade and part shade which makes her a good choice for interplanting in my hedge.

This week I took cuttings from my Sister Theresa of non-blooming wood. I want about seven new plants, so I took two stems. I cut the stems into three or four parts with very sharp pruners.

I trimmed the leaves by cutting half or more of the leaf surface away. The easiest way to do that is to fold the leave at its midrib and cut half off. After which, I cut the stem which will be rooting at an angle and dipped it into rooting hormone.

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Related post: How to Propagate Hydrangeas, Part II: Layering Marechel Foch

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: Hydrangeas in New Jersey (Zone 6b)

In anticipation of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day on May Dreams Gardens tomorrow, here are some of the hydrangeas blooming in my garden right now.

Hydrangeas: Why and How to Prune

Since my prior post about pruning a pee gee hydrangea, I have received numerous follow-up questions on why and how to prune other types of hydrangea. Most of the hydrangea in the garden are either mopheads or lace caps (pictured). These belong to the group Hydrangea macrophylla. Most macrophylla bloom on wood or stems more than a year old.

In late spring these can be pruned to remove dead wood. Since it is very difficult for me to distinguish between the dead and living wood in dormant hydrangeas, I wait until late April when the stems have begun to leaf out. Then I cut the dead wood at the base of the plant as far down as I can reach. This will allow plenty of new room for new shoots to emerge.

If your hydrangea macrophylla (pictured on Goldberry Hill) is getting too big and you want to reduce its size, prune it in mid summer after it has bloomed. You can either cut back the stems or just take out some of the longest wood at the base of the shrub. By waiting until July, you will have blooms and give the shrub time to prepare new growth to flower the following year. You do not have to do this type of pruning unless you need the space. Naturally hydrangeas develop a nice rounded shape.

Although I grow many heirloom hydrangea cultivars, I also love the new ones that have come out which bloom on old and new wood. Endless Summer and Blushing Bride are two such hydrangea. These are particularly useful in areas where hydrangea are marginally hardy. If your hydrangea gets killed to the ground during the winter, new stems can grow in the spring which will flower the same year. This also allows you to cut them to the ground or cut them back in early spring if you want to keep them smaller. Anabelle hydrangea are treated the same way.

Telegraph.co.uk - 'Annabelle' hydrangea: How to grow

I was walking around my garden this weekend and I couldn't resist taking yet another picture of my Annabelle hydrangeas. As I wrote in a prior post, my Annabelle hydrangeas--with their dried blossoms--are a highlight of my winter garden (http://heirloomgardener.blogspot.com/2007/12/annabelle-hydrangea-in-winter.html).

This past week, Telegraph.co.uk--the online version of the Telegraph in London--wrote an article praising Annabelle hydrangeas and giving advice on how to grow them. Val Bourne writes:

"The cool white Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' produces one of the most magical of all winter seed heads. After the flowers have faded and fallen, a skeleton of fine tracery remains to catch the frost and low winter sunshine. So this is one hydrangea that deserves a prominent place in every garden, somewhere it can shine in three seasons - summer, autumn and winter."

For the full article, click here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2008/02/08/garden-hydrangea-grow108.xml.