While hydrangeas may be the most outrageously beautiful perennials, they’re also quite delicate and high-maintenance, needing lots of love and attention to grow well.
In today’s article, I’ll be taking you through some of the most common care mistakes people make with hydrangeas and what you can do to avoid them. Let’s get right into it!
Common Hydrangea Care Mistakes To Avoid This Spring
1: Pruning At The Wrong Time
The first care mistake you can make with your hydrangeas is pruning them at the wrong time.
Pruning is important for removing weak or old branches and foliage from hydrangea plants, giving them more breathing room and allowing for fresh, new growth to come in.
However, if you prune when the time isn’t right, which for hydrangeas would mean between late fall to early spring, varieties that bloom on old wood won’t be able to bloom!
If you’re unsure about the right timing or technique, I wrote a detailed guide on how and when to prune hydrangeas that can help you avoid common mistakes.
2: Overwatering Or Underwatering
Though certain plants are able to handle water fluctuations well, hydrangeas are one of those that absolutely cannot.
They have very specific watering requirements, and giving them any more or less water than they need typically leads to big problems.
3: Planting In The Wrong Location
Location is something I always felt I couldn’t get right with my hydrangeas. Years later, I figured it out. You see, hydrangeas neither need too much nor too little sunlight. Just enough gets them growing and developing flowers like they should.
Avoid planting this perennial under direct bright sunlight, as the heat and sun rays can scorch the leaves real quick. Too little sun, on the other hand, will result in dull and lifeless blooms.
Choose a planting location with partial shade and plenty of indirect sunlight to get the best flowering and overall plant growth results.
4: Ignoring Soil pH & Bloom Color
This is a point I always tend to mention in my articles about hydrangeas. Although this isn’t the case for all perennials, hydrangea blooms are most definitely influenced by soil pH.
However, this anomaly does not apply to all hydrangea varieties; only some, like Mountain or Bigleaf.
5: Fertilizing Too Early Or Too Much
In the initial stages of growth, fertilization isn’t necessary. The young hydrangeas are still developing and establishing themselves in the soil, so a nutrient boost isn’t exactly needed.
Secondly, because fertilizers often contain high doses of nitrogen, they can trigger foliage growth at the expense of proper blooming. Too much fertilizer, as I’ve often mentioned, tends to burn and damage the roots much more than benefit them.
6: Skipping Spring Cleanup
A spring clean-up is essentially an annual service for your hydrangeas. This is when you prune dead foliage and remove unwanted wood that’s just thickening up the plant structure for no useful reason.
A spring clean-up lifts the burden of damaged wood from your hydrangea plant, allowing for fresh, new growth to come in and bring vibrant blooms along with it.
7: Not Protecting Against Late Frosts
Late frosts can be detrimental to hydrangea growth and your potential blooms. The cold badly damages and even kills newly sprouted flower buds, which limits blooming ability and sends the perennial into a shock-like state.
I’ve hardly ever seen a perennials make it out of late-season frosts alive or not seriously damaged; that’s all I’m going to say.
Row covers and frost cloths are your best bets for protection against late frosts.
Conclusion
No matter how much I warn or guide you, the truth is that everyone makes mistakes! Especially in gardening, if you don’t make mistakes, you won’t learn how to do things right.
If you’ve made these few mistakes in your hydrangea care routine, it may be time to realize them and actively work on mending them before it’s too late.
