How to Care for Hydrangeas

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to care for Hydrangeas. Now hydrangeas are beautiful addition to your shade garden. If you live near the coast line or real mild climate, you can probably plant them in a lot more sun. But if you live in a hotter climate or in-land, usually you got to put them in shade or they're just going to fry; as this one has done right here. So now when you're caring for Hydrangea, you want to make sure that they stay wet enough; but they don't want to sit in clay and mock; they want good drainage. So they do great under trees. As long as you water them and let them dry out a little bit in between, they'll do really well. Now theory with Hydrangeas; if they look good, leave them be; if they look rotty in anyway, chop them back. Even if you get a plant from a friend and you get it home and it just looks dead or it gets fried in the sun, put a little more shade and then turn around and as long as its got this little buds coming up, it will come right back. And so I just like to trim them out anything that's rotty and try to cut above where there's more starts coming up to. So that way it will fill right in. And I've even cut it way to the ground if it just looks trash completely and they've come right up. So even if you think you've killed it, half the time it's still alive. So that's my theory with plants. If it looks dead, chop it down; if it's still dead like two months later, then you probably killed it. But a lot of times plants just go dormant and then eventually they'll come back. So it's worth trying to save them. So you just try to thin it out and even in the fall too as they look rotty and it freezes at night, I just keep chop, chopping it back and then I just leave it, at least leave some stems; at least one third of the plant there over the winter so then it will come back in the spring and bloom for you every year. And they like good composted organic material; yet they want good drainage. So Hydrangea are a beautiful addition to your garden as long as you don't get them too hot or too wet.