Hydrangea Care Guide
Following just a few simple growing tips for hydrangea will produce healthy plants with fluffy colorful blooms year after year.
Planting Your Hydrangea
Planting your Hydrangea in early spring or in the fall is ideal. When you are planting a Hydrangea,
remember that the blooms and stems must be protected from strong winds
and the hot afternoon sun. Avoid planting in open areas where strong
winds could break stems. Planting on the eastern side of a building
ensures that, in the afternoon, when the sun is at its hottest, your
plants are in the shade.
Make sure your plant has good drainage. If the soil is too wet, the roots might rot, and the plant will die. Incorporate a lot of organic matter and an all-purpose slow-release fertilizer into the soil to give your hydrangea a strong start.
General Hydrangea Care
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If you plant them in the summer, they need a lot more water in the beginning to establish the root system.
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Most varieties thrive in full sun to part shade, as long as they are planted in moist, rich soil.
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Water deeply once a week, and maybe more, if the weather is particularly hot or dry.
- Hydrangea fertilization needs vary greatly, depending on your intended bloom color. Certain elements of the fertilizer affect the soil pH, which is a major determinant of bloom color in the pink/blue Hydrangea varieties.
Pruning Hydrangea
Hydrangeas can live for many years without ever needing to be pruned, but if your shrubs grow out of bounds or lose flowering vigor, then there are some essential pruning guidelines you must follow to ensure bountiful blooms the next year!Hydrangea macrophylla and H. quercifolia:
These generally bloom on old wood and require little pruning. Prune spent blooms immediately after flowering (midsummer), or remove only dead, damaged or unsightly wood.
Hydrangea macrophylla (Bigleaf, Mophead, or Lacecap Hydrangeas)
These Hydrangeas begin blooming in early to midsummer and can continue until summer's end, so they set their bloom buds during late summer or early fall. When pruning mopheads, you have two options, and will probably end up doing a combination of both:
These Hydrangeas begin blooming in early to midsummer and can continue until summer's end, so they set their bloom buds during late summer or early fall. When pruning mopheads, you have two options, and will probably end up doing a combination of both:
- Cut back the flowering shoots to the next bud, thus giving the branches a trim that removes the spent blooms without damaging the buds that will bloom next year. Do this right after flowering, but before midsummer.
- On older shrubs that have lost flowering vigor, cut up to a third of entire stems at the base in late winter to improve flowering vigor. Ideally, you should cut the oldest stems, leaving younger mature stems that are loaded with buds for next year, but sometimes you have a lopsided or crowded Hydrangea that must be pruned to maintain a pleasing shape. The main purpose of cutting off entire stems is to do away with elderly or poorly flowering parts of the shrub, thus letting in more air and light AND encouraging the growth of healthy new branches.In mild climates that may experience warm spells in winter, be careful of the urge to get out in the garden and start pruning before late winter. If you prune too early, you could encourage dormant buds to break, leaving tender growth susceptible to frost and freeze damage.
How to Adjust Hydrangea Color
Hydrangeas may produce pink, blue, or lavender blooms, depending on
where it’s planted and how it’s fed. The presence of aluminum in the
plant ultimately determines the color, and pH affects the uptake of
aluminum. Alkaline soils, pH of 6.0 or more, are more likely to produce
pink blooms, and more acidic soils, pH 4.5 to 5.5, produce blue flowers.
Pink hydrangeas can be turned blue by applying aluminum sulfate to lower
the pH and add aluminum to the soil. Applying lime to raise the pH
level will help blue hydrangeas turn pink. If your soil naturally
produces very blue or very pink hydrangea flowers, you may need to grow
your hydrangeas in containers or raised beds to achieve the desired
color. If you do attempt to change the color of your blooms by adding
these minerals, dilute them well, and add sparingly. It is very easy to
scorch your plants by adding too much. White hydrangeas are not affected by efforts to change bloom
color.
Zinnias
are another member of the large Aster family of plants and originate in
Mexico and the Southwest United States. They come in a form suitable
for every garden situation, including single, double, cactus, dahlia, ruffles,
and pompon. Colors include every shade except blue, and many
are multicolored. Most are prolific bloomers that add beautiful color
to the landscape, and many have growth habits that make wonderful additions
to container plantings. The uses for Zinnias in the home garden are
almost endless. Use them as border plants, fillers for bare spots
in perennial gardens, or massed in a garden all their own. 
Zinnias
do need regular deadheading for best performance. Never doing this
chore will seriously reduce both the number of blooms and the life span
of the plant itself. Although most individual Zinnia plants bloom
for many weeks, eventually they do go into a rather rapid decline, turning
into an unsightly brown dead-looking plant. Therefore, the best policy
is to start new plants every few weeks during the growing season to replace
the spent plants. Once the plant starts to decline, there's no turning
back, so just pull it and replace with a new one. I know it's hard
to let go when there is one sickly little bloom left on there, but you have
to be strong! I personally keep a flat of seedlings going at all times.
As I transplant a seedling to the garden, I refill the potting soil and
plant a new seed in its place. This insures that I always have plants
waiting to go when I need them. 
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