Here is professional guidance on how to put hydrangeas to bed for the winter season from guest bloggers Megan Nichols and Jessie Jacobson of Tonkadale Greenhouse in Minnetonka, Minnesota. (They may have more hydrangea trees and shrubs in their zip code than almost anywhere else in the United States, so they are aware!)
The temperature has dropped, and autumnal symbols can be seen everywhere. The garden needs to be put to bed soon. Hydrangeas reward us with large, stunning, and prodigious blooms all season long. You may say that they are givers. It’s time to return the favor now. It’s time to tuck the hydrangeas in with kisses and wishes for sweaty dreams.
Here in Minnesota, our moods can fluctuate as drastically as the unpredictably harsh winter weather extremes, snowfall, and freeze/thaw cycles. Despite the fact that many hydrangeas are regarded as hardy, all of this can confuse them. To survive the winter and come back bigger and better the next year, they require some care. Although hydrangeas cultivated in warmer areas don’t need as much post-season primping as those grown in our zone, there isn’t a single thing that wouldn’t appreciate a little tender loving care right now.
Utilize these suggestions to get the most out of your hydrangeas so that you can be the one to present at this time next season!
(Is pruning in order? No and yes. Here is our recommendation for which hydrangeas should be pruned right away and which should wait until spring.)
Don’t Stop Watering
Make a commitment! I shall water my hydrangeas till the earth freezes solid, you declare while raising your right hand. really good Hydrangeas are thirsty plants by nature, so it’s essential to give them regular, deep watering. We don’t need to get all linguistically nerdy right now, but their name literally means “hydration.” Winter’s cool, dry winds completely drain the moisture from the vegetation, and hydrangeas don’t use lip balm. It need not be heated in order to be dry!
If a freeze is not a concern where you live, water deeply but sparingly during the winter depending on how much rain you get.
This is how: Making a small hole in the side of a 5-gallon bucket, filling it with water, and placing it at the base of the plant while it slowly drips out of the bucket is one method. Another option is to lay your hose at the base of the plant for about an hour with the water turned on to a gentle drip.
Give Them One Last Hearty Meal
Composting your hydrangea beds in the fall will give them a boost for the upcoming growing season. Everyone feels better after a full night’s sleep and a filling breakfast. This also applies to hydrangeas. After a lengthy winter’s hibernation, they will be ravenous for some nice compost. Compost can decompose during the winter if it is used now, making nutrients easily accessible in spring. A few inches of compost is advisable even in regions without a deep cold. Only compost is being discussed here! Don’t give your hydrangeas fertilizers that are high in nitrogen because this can encourage them to produce new foliage growth.
This is how: Before laying down mulch in colder climates, top dress the area with compost, well-aged manure, or other organic material after the ground has frozen. This organic fertilizer, which is rich in nutrients, will decompose over the winter, making nutrients available to the plant in the spring. Apply compost in the late fall or early winter in zones that are warmer.
Mulch Matters
Mulching helps keep moisture in and weeds out in warmer climates while shielding the crown and roots of your hydrangeas from harsh winter temperatures in colder climates. Snow serves as a natural insulator if everything goes as it should. Plants suffer during strange winters with little snowfall and extreme temperature changes. Apply a thick layer of mulch around the plant’s base to offer hydrangeas the best chance of flourishing. While decorative mulch is useful, straw, marsh hay, or dead leaves are suggested instead.
This is how: Apply a 6–8 layer of mulch once the ground has frozen (or late fall or early winter in zones with milder winters). This shields plants from the heave-ho of springtime freeze/thaw cycles, which can yank them out of the ground. Inviting mice to make this their snug winter home, causing rotting and illness, or tricking the plant into believing it’s time to bud, are all consequences of mulching too early. Be patient; you don’t have to do things early simply because your neighbors are.
Keep Them Cozy
The amount of winter cold determines whether or not hydrangeas require protection. Winter protection is not required in zone 7 if the air temperature stays above zero degrees. Wrap or totally cover barely hardy hydrangeas in chilly areas. This is crucial for plants that bloom on old wood, such hydrangeas with mop heads and large leaves (Hydrangea macrophylla). The most recent types of mop head/big leaf hydrangeas, however, bloom on both fresh and old wood, so it’s important to keep that in mind. In their favor and ours! Hardier hydrangea varieties like the paniculata and arborescens don’t often require additional winter care, although really low temperatures might cause its limbs to die back. Consider covering if a colder than usual winter is forecast.
This is how: Wrap plants loosely in a few layers of burlap, making sure to tie it off with strong twine. Making a mulch mountain and covering the majority of the plant is an additional choice. Smaller, newly planted specimens respond well to this technique.
There’s Still Time To Plant!
The first three varieties of hydrangeas can be grown here in Zone 4; oak leaf hydrangeas can also be grown in warmer climates (zones 5 to 9). The optimal time to plant shrubs is in the fall. Just make sure to do all of the aforementioned things, including watering and mulching.
Here are some of our favorites that you can plant now for stunning blooms the following spring.
Panicle Hydrangeas
These late blooming hydrangeas, sometimes known as PeeGee hydrangeas (summer into early fall). They are covered in elongated, conical flower heads that emerge white or green and blush into pinks and peaches as the season goes on.
Which mulch kind is ideal for hydrangeas?
Mulch excels as a superhero in the backyard garden. Even on the hottest days, it maintains soil moisture, prevents many troublesome weeds from growing close to plants, controls soil temperature, and even aids in preventing erosion. A heavy layer of mulch provides hydrangeas with the same protection that other garden plants do. Your hydrangeas will appreciate the mulch by growing better and producing nicer blooms if it is spread and maintained properly.
Choose a mulching substance. An organic mulch that decomposes and enriches the soil is beneficial for hydrangeas. Examples of organic mulches ideal for hydrangeas include compost, pine straw, and pine bark. Chopped leaves are another option.
Depending on the size of the material, apply the mulch 3 to 5 inches deep. Since a thicker layer could prevent enough air and water from reaching the soil, finer mulches with bits 1/2 inch or smaller should only be put to the soil to a depth of 3 inches. Medium mulch should be 4 inches deep and include particles no larger than 1 inches. Apply 5 inches for mulch that is coarser.
To completely cover the space underneath the canopy, spread the mulch around the shrubs. Leave 2 inches of space between the mulch and the hydrangea’s stem to reduce the chance of crown rot.
How should I get my hydrangeas ready for the winter?
Protecting flower buds is the aim of winter hydrangea care. The simplest approach is to pile 12 inches or so of mulch made of chopped-up leaves or bark around the base of the plant. After the ground freezes in the late fall, set the mulch pile there. Plants can then be exposed in the spring, when the temperature starts to stay above freezing.
Do hydrangeas need to be mulched?
You need to protect your hydrangeas in the winter if your area gets freezing winter temperatures. You should consider using straw, wood mulch, or leaves to insulate your plants. To safeguard the flower buds that will open early the next year, pile mulch or leaves around your plants so that they are at least 12 inches high. To ensure stunning blossoms in the spring, wait until all threat of frost has passed before uncovering. Follow the same procedures as if your hydrangeas were planted in the ground, but instead bring the entire pot inside your garage or a cool basement for the winter. Since they won’t get moisture from snow or rain during the winter, water sparingly.
When should hydrangeas be wrapped for the winter?
Winter care for potted hydrangeas must take the exposed surface area of the pot into account, though. The USDA plant hardiness zones for hydrangea macrophylla varies from 5 to 9, depending on the cultivar. After the plant has shed its leaves for the winter, Heritage Museums and Gardens advises transferring potted Hydrangea macrophylla into an unheated storage space, such as a garage or shed. While immature plants should be housed between 35 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit, mature plants can handle 32 degrees.
In the spring, don’t unwrap hydrangeas until after the final frost. Be careful not to harm the developing buds. Cover plants carefully with frost blanket material, a garbage can, a large pail or pot, sheets, or blankets if an unusually late frost comes. Make sure the covering material reaches the ground completely and weigh it down to keep it in place.
Should pine needles be used as mulch around hydrangeas?
Flowers That Love Acid The azalea, gardenia, hydrangea, jasmine, rhododendron, bayberry, Daphne rose, and holly are among the shrubs that benefit from pine needle mulch.
Are hydrangeas suited for coffee grounds?
Coffee has always been amazing to me. If not magical, then pretty close. I mean, I’m a writer, and I’m pretty convinced that writers account for at least half of the sales in the coffee industry. But this also means that every day, we throw away tons of used coffee grounds. Although coffee grounds alone are not very harmful to the environment—in fact, I’ll teach you how to use them in your yard in a moment—they do add to the volume of landfills. Coffee, ever the sociable drink, mixes with other trash in foul trash heaps to produce methane, which as we all know is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. So the next time, try something a little different rather than simply throwing the grinds in the trash.
If you just drink one pot of coffee per day, you will have a lot of wonderful, mineral-rich grounds left over after you finish your first pot of the day, which you can use to enhance your garden. We coffee aficionados enjoy the strong coffee fragrance, but insects that harm flowers respond negatively to it. Coffee grounds not only deter ants and snails, but they also stop neighborhood cats from digging in your flowerbeds. Therefore, pile the material high around your preferred plants to ward off slimy, stingy, or fluffy pests.
Use coffee grinds to alter the color of your hydrangeas. The soil around hydrangeas becomes more acidic thanks to coffee grinds. Chemically speaking, the plant can more readily absorb naturally occurring aluminum in the soil as a result of the increased acidity. Pretty blue flower clusters are the result. Coffee grinds let you play with the color to transform pinker blossoms into other shades of blue, or perhaps a shade of purple in between, even if coffee won’t influence the brilliance of the flowers (pale blue flowers will remain pale blue, for example).
Coffee contains nitrogen, which helps plants grow, so give your plants a boost by turning the grinds into a natural fertilizer. Add a quarter cup of coffee grounds to four or five liters of water to make a “tea of coffee grounds.” Pour the liquid over all of your plants the next morning for a nutrient boost after letting it set overnight.
Cut back these shrubs in late winter before new growth begins
Shrubs that flower on young wood typically start blooming later than old-growth bloomers, beginning in June and continuing until the first frost, because they need to grow and set buds the same year that they bloom. As long as you avoid trimming when the flower buds are opening, these shrubs are understanding if it is not done at a specific period.
1. Trim the flowers all the way back for larger blooms.
These bushes can be completely removed from the ground in late winter or the beginning of spring. If cut severely like this every year, smooth hydrangeas will produce much larger flowers, but many gardeners prefer smaller blooms on stronger stems.
2. Maintain an old growth foundation to lessen flopping
Especially after watering from above or after a heavy storm, the branches of some hydrangeas frequently topple over from the weight of their blooms. Cutting the stems to a height of 18 to 24 inches will help to reduce this flopping by creating a strong framework for fresh growth.
Janet Carson is the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service’s horticulture specialist.
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To Prune Or Not To Prune
The first thing to understand is that hydrangeas don’t require annual pruning. In fact, they are capable of producing robust blooms for years on end with no pruning at all.
Pruning is only necessary to maintain a shrub’s shape or to make it manageable after many years of growth. However, if you plan to prune, there are a few things you should know first.
Knowing whether to prune your particular kind of hydrangea in the fall or in the middle of summer is the first step. Where did you learn that? That relies entirely on when your hydrangeas bloom, though.
Hydrangeas come in two different kinds, one of which blooms on new growth and the other on old wood growth.
In the summer, varieties that bloom on old wood growth emerge from flowers that did so on last year’s growth. These should be pruned in the summer, immediately following their blooming season.
Regrettably, pruning these in the fall may stunt the growth where the fresh blooms might otherwise appear.
If, however, your hydrangeas bloom in the fall, it signifies that they are flowering from the same season’s new growth. After the blossoms have withered away in the fall, these hydrangeas can be cut back. They will then develop the new growth that will support the blossoms that will arise in the following fall in the spring.
Preparing Hydrangeas For WinterFall Hydrangea Care
After discussing trimming, it is time to discuss winterizing your hydrangeas. The climate where you live will determine how you prepare for winter.
First off, every fall, all hydrangeas can profit from one thing, regardless of where you live: a reinvigorating layer of compost!
Applying a few inches of compost around the base of your plant not only aids in protecting the roots from the winter, but it also gradually supplies nutrients that can be utilized for development and flowers the following year. Click here to buy Charlie’s Bagged Compost.
MulchingFall Hydrangea Care
A fresh covering of mulch in the fall will be beneficial for hydrangeas whether you are in a region with harsh winters or one with milder ones.
With addition to protecting hydrangea roots from abrupt thaws and freezing, mulch also aids in moisture retention. However, where you reside will affect how much mulch you use.
The usual rule of thumb is that the more mulch you need, the colder the climate. A few inches of mulch on top of the compost is more than enough to help retain moisture in regions where it is extremely rare for temperatures to fall below freezing.
A 6 layer is more appropriate if you live in a colder climate with winters that reach 0 degrees. And if your temperature grows even colder, wrap the main base in 8 to 12 layers.
In cooler climes, apply the thicker layers, then remove the mulch in the spring to allow the plant to start growing again.
Taking good care of your hydrangeas this fall will result in bigger and greater blooms the next season. See our post How To Plant, Grow, And Care For Hydrangeas for additional details on how to take care of hydrangeas.