Pruning Hydrangea - Prune your Hydrangea right

1. I need to know what species of hydrangea I have in my garden first, because different types of hydrangea need different treatment.
So with support of the United states national arboretum I was able to find out what I have in our little garden.
On the left (no1) hydrangea paniculata and all the others (no2) are variations of big leaf hydrangea.

2. Some hydrangea have their blooms on one year old wood others only on wood grown in the second year. Even though I know that all of my hydrangea bloom on second year wood I never cut into those fresh one year sprouts that grow directly from the center, because I know that I need those for the future because in the next year there will be blossoms on them.

3. As I live in a climate where there can be snow and frost even in April I wait with the pruning or better with the removal of gone blossoms and dead wood as long as possible. I have removed the old blossoms now mid of March, but this could be a bit to early already because tonight (18.th of MArch) we might get deep frost again. The old blossoms give a nice cover for the fresh buds which might have gone open already a little and which are so sensitive to frost.
Also I like to do the trimming when the leaves have gone and I can see better where to cut or not.

I have circled the buds that will bloom this year with green color and with red I made a mark where I have cut old blossoms and dead parts.

Here are some more examples where I cut (red marks).

Summary of what I do with big leaf hydrangea:

1. Remove old, dead parts,
2. cut the old blossoms and leave 1-2 buds on that branch if there are some.
3. Never cut into the new growth from the bottom center

I have one Hydrangea panicula, that grows a bit like an ordinary bush and I treat it similar. The place where it grows is much to small and unfortunately I have to cut it back badly, a bit like the wild guys in one of the videos below.. I got the idea to propagate it with a cutting at another place in the garden

Even in autumn,after the bloom, Hydrangea blossoms are still beautiful.

Hydrangea Corner Photographic Print
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Cutting too much
In the first years the Hydrangeas seemed not to develop properly. Somehow I didn´t get bushes, each year I got new grown from the bottom center whereas 2 year old growth seemed not to survive. Today I know that it was probably my fault because I had cut them back too much.

Hydrangea and water
My Hydrangeas need a lot of water. I have watered them like crazy,but still in the heat of the summer the blossoms would get soft and weak. Since a couple of years I do not water them at all and it hasn´t changed a lot. In dry summers they are not that beautiful in wet summers they are growing and blooming great.

Changing the colors with Aluminium sulphate
I have never used fertilizer, but experimented with Aluminium sulphate. It was a waste of time and I would think it is in the most cases for Hydrangea in the garden.
If the soil is alcaline or has a good buffer in other words if you have a good garden soil it is hopeless to change the PH of the soil with Alum. Alum is highly movable and it will be carried away with the rain and natural water drain. It might be fun to change the color of Hydrangea plants in pots though.

Hydrangea and frost
Hydrangea do not like frost even though they are hard. But the new buds can be damaged badly by late frost or snow. Therefore I keep the old blossoms of big leaf Hydrangea until March of the next year as protection.

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Postage Blooming Hydrangea by editionha
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My pruning probably was not that bad as now in June the bushes are showing a good development of flowers.