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The Essential Guide to Hydrangeas – Hydrangea Care and More!

What’s not to love about hydrangeas? These showy shrubs are the delight of summer blooms. They are long-living shrubs that bloom most of the summer and well into fall. Here is a guide to all things hydrangea: a description of the different types, how to change their color, drying projects, and how to properly manage hydrangea care!

How to Grow Hydrangeas

Type of Hydrangeas

Most Hydrangeas prefer moist, rich soil, and part sun /part shade locations. They generally like a bit of morning sun and cooling shade in the afternoon to perform best and stay healthy.

Several species (and many, many varieties of these species) of the hydrangea genus are commonly seen in garden centers and florist shops. I have four types representing three species in my landscape: ‘Endless Summer’ bigleaf hydrangea, ‘Bluebird’ lacecap compact hydrangea, ‘Tardiva’ hardy hydrangea, and ‘Alice’ oakleaf hydrangea.

Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)

Bigleaf hydrangea is a spring bloomer, and perhaps the most widely sought species. They may have either round or flat flower clusters in shades of white, red, pink, blue, purple, and sometimes red. The big round bloomers are called “mopheads” and those with flat blooms are called “lacecaps.”

Mountain hydrangea (Hydrangea serrata)

Mountain hydrangea is extremely similar to macrophylla but is smaller and more cold hardy. It is broad with large heads of pink or blue flowers in summer and autumn.

Hardy Hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata)

These pretty hydrangeas bloom in the summer. The long cone-shaped blooms change in color from light green to white to pink or red as they mature.

Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)

The Oakleaf hydrangea is famous for its large, deep green leaves that persist far into autumn and for its displays of fall shades of orange, red and maroon before dormancy. Oakleaf hydrangea bears its white panicles of blooms in early summer.

Other Tyles of Hydrangeas

  • Climbing Hydrangeas such as Decumaria barbata and Hydrangea petiolaris are vines which behave politely as they climb walls, fences, and pergolas. Unlike wisteria they are relatively tame and easy to prune.
  • Wild Hydrangea, (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’), is a loose—and wide—branched shrub that likes moist soil or rocky slopes.
  • Rough-Leaved Hydrangea (Hydrangea aspera) has rough leaves and broad, flat flower heads. You can even get ones with purple foliage like this Plum Passion’ from Monrovia.

Plum Passion Hydrangea from Monrovia

Pruning Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas don’t need to be pruned, but some varieties will give you a better show if you do give them a cut. The most important things to know for pruning hydrangeas successfully is what kind of hydrangea you have and when to cut.

Hydrangeas that bloom on old wood (last season’s stems rather than this season’s) should only be pruned after flowering. Hydrangeas that bloom on new wood can be pruned in the fall before winter dormancy or in spring as soon as you can see new growth. At this time of year, you can prune back the whole plant for bigger flowers, thin them out, or shape them freely.

Despite all of these recommendations, you should always follow the 4 D’s of pruning. That is, you can safely remove any damaged, diseased, dead, or dying plant material at any time of the year. In fact, it’s encouraged for the best health of your plant.

Here are a few more resources on pruning:

Learn How to Prune like a Pro! Pruning 101

Want to Know WHEN to Prune? This Will Answer All of Your Questions!

The Art of Espalier: Growing Fruit Trees in Small Spaces

Close up of a pruned pistachio Multi-Color Hydrangea

Hydrangea Propagation

When doing hydrangea propagation, the best branches to work with are relatively thick (one and a half times the thickness of a pencil), a little green (but not brand new shoots), with no flower buds.

Cut the top six inches of the branch, making the cut two inches or so below the leaf node (this is the junction where a leaf sprouts or sprouted from the branch).

Remove all except the top two leaves. Cut the top two leaves in half to reduce the loss of water through transpiration. Dip the base of the cutting into rooting hormone (which isn’t absolutely necessary) then put the cutting into a sterile seedling mix. See how to do it here.

Hydrangea propagation success at Annabelle Monrovia
Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ growing in Monrovia nursery

How to Change Hydrangea Color

Love your hydrangea blooms but want to change up their color? Many hydrangeas will go through a slight color change when transplanted due to the adjustment to their new soil when you first bring them home.

But if you really want to shake things up, this simple little soil hack will help you learn how to change hydrangea colors!

How to Change Hydrangea Color

Drying Hydrangeas

It’s not that hard to dry hydrangea flowers and keep their color! Here is how:How to dry hydrangea flowers and retain their color

Thank you to Monrovia for providing some of the photos for this article and to VanRubin Gardens, the personal garden of Jeffery Rubin in West Vancouver, BC, for a tour of his gorgeous garden. 

Pistachio Hydrangea in a contaner garden

 

More Plant Care Guides:

 

Comments

  1. Such a beautiful website. I love, grow, and paint flowers and your blog is a real find. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Thank you, Karen. What a nice comment to read. I appreciate you taking the time. It means more than you know. xo Stephanie

      Reply
    • Hi Katy, while nothing is certain due to the differences in varieties, you could adjust the pH so that it is a pinky-purple or a purple-blue. Try to get the pH as neutral as possible (pH 6 or 7) and you may see some changes in bloom color towards purple. Experiment and log your results, you never know what might work best.

      Reply
  2. Great tips! Thank you for sharing with us at #HomeMattersParty . We would love to have you again this week.

    Reply
  3. I LOVE your site, but I think one of the most important elements of being a great gardener is knowing ALL about a plant; it’s healing properties OR its dangerous, and often deadly properties. I think everyone has a responsibility to tell people, especially those with children and pets, if a plant is dangerous and HYDRANGEAS ARE EXTREMELY POISONOUS. “All hydrangeas contain cyanogenic glycosides. These substances, when ingested, can cause gastronomical upset, including vomiting and diarrhea. They also can cause a decreased heart rate and lowered amounts of oxygen in the blood. These things can lead to breathing difficulties, seizures and coma. If the toxins are consumed in large amounts, heart or respiratory failure can occur.” Please add the information about what effects a plant can have to your blog. It matters.

    Reply
  4. I live in MN and I love the look of hydrangea bushes! I want to plant a few of them near the front of my house (the Zone 4 type), but I’m worried that there won’t be enough sun. The house is north facing, and where the bushes would be it is really all shade. Are there varieties of hydrangeas that tolerate full shade better than others? Or can you recommend a big flowering bush that would work well in full shade?

    Reply

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