Grow Your Own Magazine

My hydranges have gone somewhat leggy, can I prune the hard ? I don't mind losing one season but I dont want to kill them.

Best way is to prune half the stems back hard and the other half next year - that way you won't lose all the flowers next year and you can then prune back the flowering stems each year to keep it under control.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Welcome to the Vine Killjoy. There are several different types of Hydrangeas and I believe the pruning instructions are different for each. I have several different kinds, and I find they are best left alone until spring. There are instructions for cut here and prune there, but I find cut back in spring gives good results. See what others think.

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

When I moved in to my current house there was a huge border of Escalonia hedge and Hydrangea around most of the garden. We're talking 8 foot high and 8 foot wide.

The garden was so dark and nothing grew well so we set about taking the whole lot down to ground level. We even got banned from the local tip because they thought we were a gardening enterprize. They wouldn't believe it all came from one garden.

The Escalonia we killed off but most of the Hydrangea we let grow back. That must have been about 3 years ago.

A few weeks back we noticed the Hydrangea were back to almost 6 foot high and getting very unruly again so they've been taken right down to about 6 - 12inches and are already sprouting back.

Loads of flowers on them every year