Pruning Hydrangeas After Winter Damage

May 7, 2015 | C.L. Fornari | Problem Solving, Shrubs

Now comes the moment of truth for Cape Cod gardeners. Early May is when we know how much damage the winter has done to our mop-head and lace-cap hydrangeas. Early may finds us either rejoicing, knowing that our plants will flower this summer, or despairing because it’s clear that this will be a season of few blooms.

Bottom line: if your hydrangea canes don’t have green leaves that are at least the size of a dime by May 6th, those canes were toasted by the winter and will need to be removed. Now it the time to prune your plants because you’ll be able to cut off any canes without leaves, or clean off the top of canes with buds that were zapped and leave the lower part where green leaves are opening. Here are a few photos to help you know what to cut and where.

Later in May you will be able to see which canes have green leaves on them (flowers!) and which ones have gotten zapped in the winter. Once the leaves are clearly opening and visible, leave any cane that has such growth and remove canes (or tops of canes) that don’t have green, growing leaves. When we’ve had a very cold winter most of the buds may be killed, and in the following summer there won’t be many hydrangea flowers.

This shows buds that probably won’t open into leaves. Everyone questions these buds, thinking, “But there is some green there…” but by the third week in May, if those buds haven’t opened into leaves, they aren’t going to.

If you go to the Informational Handouts page on this website there is a downloadable pdf about How To Prune Hydrangeas. That handout, and this blog post, are about the blue or pink types of hydrangeas such as the lace-caps and mop-heads. The white flowering varieties of Hydrangea paniculata (Pee Gee, LimeLight, Bobo etc) and Annabelle flower on new growth so as long as they are alive they will produce flowers even after a cold winter.

Posted in Problem Solving, Shrubs

2 Comments

Maureen G on May 14, 2015 at 5:51 pm

THIS WAS SO VERY HELPFUL ESPECIALLY THE DIME SIZE CLUE. IT’S ALSO HELPFUL TO LEARN THAT THE WHITE VARIETY CAN BE PRUNED IN THE FALL.
TAHNKS SO MUCH,
MG

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Jane B on May 20, 2015 at 9:17 am

I just love your emails. The hydrangea pruning is interesting to know that the second week in May is when we will know what to prune.
Thanks for doing this. JB

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