Here’s How To Cut Hydrangea In 4 Steps

The hydrangea is a very popular plant in French gardens. Its maintenance is not very complicated and it also offers us magnificent colors during its flowering. Moreover, to stimulate the latter, pruning is an important step. Here’s how to properly prune your hydrangeas depending on the period.

Take your cuttings

Start pruning by cutting off the end of a non-flowering bud (young bud) that has grown this year. The cutting should have at least 3 layers of leaves. A length of 15 to 20 cm should be sufficient. Choose a side shoot and avoid cutting the main shoot so the shrub can continue to grow.

Remove the leaves at the base of the cutting.

Use a scion or sharp rake to remove the first few leaves near the base of the cutting, leaving 4 to 6 leaves at the end. Removing leaves reduces foliage evaporation and promotes rooting.

Pricking the cuttings

Take a small biodegradable pot and build a drainage system by placing small balls of clay in the soil. Add a mixture of sand and potting soil or, ideally, sand, peat and heather in equal quantities. Then prick two-thirds of the cuttings.

You can moisten the cuttings’ soil with hormones in advance, but this is not absolutely necessary.

Care of cuttings

Moisten the soil regularly with a sprayer and keep the cuttings cool at around 15°C. The meeting will take place in 15 days. If your pots are resistant, it is best to move the plants the following spring. Otherwise, once the cuttings are rooted, they must be transplanted for the first time into plastic cups in a mixture of soil (2/3) and heather soil (1/3).