Hydrangea flowers are what makes them so popular and a firm favourite for many gardeners.
The large flowers come in various shapes, colours, and sizes, their blooms can be pink, blue, red, white, purple and green.
While pruning encourages blooms to grow, gardening enthusiasts on the comments section of a post on the Hydrangeas in the UK Facebook page claimed that February is too early to carry out this task.
Instead, they recommended deadheading the shrub now. Deadheading refers to the act of removing flowers from a plant.
In most instances, these blooms are those which have started to age and are no longer considered to be attractive.
This suggestion was made after gardener David Hobson asked if he should be deadheading his hydrangea now.
Posting a picture of his hydrangea in full bloom and the state it’s currently in now, he said: “Interestingly or maybe not, these were all cuttings from my partner’s grandpa’s huge plant. The reason I’m posting is, has anyone deadheaded yet?”
The majority of comments were all for it. Gareth Wilkinson said: “I deadheaded mine on Monday and I’ll keep an eye on the weather for the next couple of weeks. any forecast for freezing temperatures and I’ll cover at night.”
Janet Smith said: “I deadheaded mine yesterday morning. I always do it around this time of year.”
Gel Strong wrote: “I deadheaded this morning, I usually deadhead when they run brown, but someone told me to leave till February and by doing this I can see double the amount of glorious blooms coming through compared to last year. Very excited to see how it grows.”
Sarah Kirk warned: “You can deadhead them now but don’t prune them. If you prune now, when they have new growth you could lose the flower buds as well as the leaves.”
Deadheading a hydrangea makes a real difference in diverting energy to more important parts of the plant’s growth.
However, it’s typically recommended to carry out this practice all through the blooming season to encourage new blossoms and keep your plant looking fresh.
Once the frost has passed it is ok for gardeners to deadhead their hydrangea as they’ll no longer need protection.
