r/hydrangeas

To be fair they did crowd out the other bushes 😂.

Ours bloom later than the neighbors I think mostly because of pruning, but once it’s time they do look great. Zone 6B strawberry vanilla.

Can anybody help me with top tips on how to care for my young hydrangea plants please? The leaves are going brown on the ends and I don’t know how to stop it. Thanks in advance!

I've let this lil' buddy do it's thing for the 10 years I've been in my house. I've never in my life been a garden-y person but look forward to the flowers every year and am saving up for a hydrangea tattoo!

Wicked storm last night and one of my little hotties snapped from the wind :( is there any magical gardeners tape i'm unaware of that will help her heal??? This part of the plant is currently being propped up with a stick but there are more storms coming today, so it won't hold. If there's no saving this part, should I clip it?

What do???????

It’s about 6ft tall, maybe 10ft wide. My house is 32 years old but I have no idea when it was planted. We call it “the mother plant”. Located close to Seattle

Update: this post made me want to break out the tape measure. 6ft tall and 12ft wide from flower to flower

Middle Georgia, zone 8. I purchased this Endless Summer hydrangea about a week ago at a reputable nursery. I haven't got it in the ground yet but I'm noticing brown spots on the leaves. It's been so hot here and it was sitting in full sun, so I thought maybe the leaves were getting burned. But it's been in the shade for almost a week and there are more new spots. What's wrong with it and how do I fix it?

I was asked on this sub how I propagate my Hydrangea cuttings and it was too much info to reply in one post as it requires photos.

I’ve been propagating these for years as they are so easy to propagate from cuttings, I made a big mistake two years ago stupidly trying to acidify my soil with watered down white vinegar, it didn’t end well and I lost a load of good plants.

I took cuttings galore and long story short ended up with 20 good plants last summer after losing 8 to late frosts, binning some due to stunted growth because of frost damage, and giving some away to those who gave me cuttings.

Those cuttings from two years ago are now shop size plants in full flower.

This is my method of propagation, others may think differently but this always works for me, I had a 95% success rate two years ago doing it this way.

Take your cuttings in July from non flowering stems, cut back to a leaf node, this is where it will root from.

Numbered photos
1- These are from the cuttings two summers ago
2-Take your cuttings from non flowering stems and cut below the leaf node where my finger is pointing
3-Depending on your cutting as some may have only one pair of leaves above (this had two) cut the next pair of leaves off, I then cut the remaining pair of leaves in half as per this photo, this is to reduce water loss
4-I scrape the outer layer off the stem on two sides as per the photo if you look closely, this is to get more surface area with rooting hormone powder
5-Dip the stem in rooting powder, you can see how much I scraped off by how the white powder is sticking to the stem
6-Pointing finger showing the hormone powder on the stem, repeat this on all cuttings
7-Photo showing 15 cuttings from my Bavaria Hydrangea, these are either pink or blue with white edging to the bracts, been meaning to take cuttings off this for years, I dug it out last summer and potted it up to bring it back to life as it was buried under other plants, it’s now back to full health and thriving but has no flowers this year due to putting all its energy into growing.
8-Get so compost and use a dibber or pencil to form a hole in the soil and carefully push the cutting into it, firm up around the cutting and repeat on all cuttings, I’ve likely too many in this pot but I’ve ran out of compost and had to steal this from other pots to do these cuttings.
9- I don’t have any rooted Hydrangea cuttings yet as it’s too early but this is generally what you’ll see after around 6-7 weeks, at this stage they can be put in their own pots but be very careful not to disturb roots, I normally wait until they are far stronger than this TBH but have took these out a rooting pot to show what to expect.
10-These are cuttings I took last year mainly from my Black steel blue hydrangeas, you can see the dark stems, forgot to get some of these going the year before so have 6 of these on the go (they get massive royal blue flowers) and also a Blaumese ((Teller Blue)
11- At this stage this is important, keep pinching out the growth tips after a stem has grown a couple of inches, this will promote 2 new growths from that 1 branch, when the 2 growths grow around 2 inches pinch them out, they’ll both also get 2 new growths, so 1 stem has now got 4 stems growing in the space of just 5-6 inches, pinch those 4 out you’ve now got 8 stems, bear in mind it’s these stems that carry your flowers the following summer, remove any flowers in its first year after rooting to focus the plant on growing, water well, add Hydrangea feed,keep it somewhere where it’ll see morning or evening sun avoiding midday afternoon sun, they’ll grow quickly
12- This is a typical example of how the new plant will look in year two just 24 months after taking your cutting, it will be around two foot tall and well branched, this one is Kardinal Pink
13- Is one of last years cuttings, you can see where I’ve pinched out the growth tips and it’s formed two new growths, this plant also now has two growths coming up from below the soil from the roots, next summer it will be around two feet and covered in massive blue mop head flowers.

Note- I follow this same process on most my cuttings from shrubs, works every time, especially on deciduous shrubs, I find evergreen plants like Azalea and Rhododendron harder to take with a far less success rate around 20% if that even.

Planted them in the fall of 2024. Lots of blooms despite leaftier attacking them in the spring. Much sturdier this year, probably because I put a peony cage around them and also because I pruned them back to 10-15 inches early spring

In west MI, put it down 5/28 ish and she’s taking off now! Is this the time to trim the long leggy stems a little ways in order to keep it growing thick, full & sturdy?

So beautiful, I drive past extra slow to admire it every day.

Hi everyone! I’m in Houston, TX (Zone 9) and I’ve always wanted hydrangeas, but our heat has made me hesitant.
I have this shady area on the side/front of my house where a small shrub is currently growing (photos attached). It gets mostly shade throughout the day, with maybe a little filtered morning or late afternoon sun. There’s always a patch of moss growing there as well.
Do you think this would be a good location for hydrangeas? If so…
Which type would you recommend for Houston’s heat and humidity?
Would you plant one large shrub or a few smaller ones?
Anything I should do to improve the soil before planting?

I’d love something with beautiful blooms that can handle our climate if given enough shade. Any advice is appreciated :)

So funny how this one has a little bloom on it. Unfortunately only 4 of 8 survived. We had a late frost and I had the containers outside a bit too early. Lesson learned. Definitely going to do this again this year, though.

Current trunk length from ground to branches is about 3 feet.

I’m trying to strengthen and elongate the trunk so the tree goes taller so it is more sturdy to hold all the branches and blooms

Zone 7b. Our garden center planted 6 limelights last Sept. These two are not doing well. The others are fine a few have some yellow leaves. These two are in part shade while others are in full sun. I used a cheap metal probe tester I had in hand and it said that my soil is alkaline. So I bought the espoma soil acidifier and applied it to the limelights 3 weeks ago. Nothings changed - in fact it looks worse. What’s wrong and do you have any tips?

Thanks

I’m a newbie to the world of hydrangeas and really to gardening in general!
What should I do? When I planted them they were green, we’ve had some really hot days and I’ve been trying to keep up with my watering. Love any suggestions!

Very new to this flower but glad to see it thriving!

Grow zone: 10b

I bought these three days ago and they’ve already started to wilt. I’ve tried keeping a different hydrangea outside in the sun but my garden gets way too much sun and it dried out very quickly. I’m also fearful of overwatering these current ones indoors. I’m wondering if I should repot them into a bigger pot? I’ve never had a successful hydrangea plant and really struggle with them, so any advice would be really helpful and appreciated. Any tips?

Editing to add that I’m in zone 7b if that helps