I have 2 lacecaps that are 6 yrs old, when is the best time to cut them bacl? I live in zone 7a.
When to cut back Lacecap Hydrangeas?
Most of the lacecaps I can think of bloom only on old wood, so your best bet is to prune them right away after they bloom. Pruning them now in the fall will remove next year's buds and you won't get flowers. If they're severely overgrown you're not going to kill the plant by pruning them now or over the winter so if you don't mind losing a year of flowers then go for it, but assuming the shrubs aren't in need of drastic pruning you're better off waiting.
They have a bloom or two on them now and several buds. They never really stoped blooming, thats what I have been wating for. It has been warm here, its 7:40pm here and it's 64 degrees. We haven't had our first frost, I'm thinging maybe I could trim them before it gets that cold. What do you think ecrane? I appricate your information I didn't know about them blooming on old wood. Thanks again Katherine
I have heard that it is best to leave the flowers on the plant through the winter. We have a guy on the TV named Cisco Morris that suggests this. The dead flower head protects the new growth from frost. Then carefully prune flower head in spring.
Has anyone else have different advice? Thank.
Katherine--for hydrangeas that bloom on old wood, now is too late to prune unless you want to risk cutting off next year's flowers. I wouldn't prune any later than July/August. As I said before though, if they're seriously overgrown and you don't mind losing some/all of next year's flowers then it's not going to hurt the plant to prune it now. Otherwise wait until next year, but you may have to prune it before all the flowers have completely faded. Although if you've been getting new blooms recently then it sounds like it may be blooming on new wood as well as old in which case pruning time doesn't matter as much. But I still can't think of any reblooming lacecaps--do you know the name of the cultivar you have by any chance?
Mary--There's certainly no harm in leaving the flowers on over the winter and then trimming just the flower heads off in the spring, but in zone 8 I'm not sure that you have that much chance of frost damage on your hydrangeas anyway.
Thank you ecrane, Actually we do get lots of frosty nights. We have had frost two times in the past week, even though we live right on the sound. I used to think we were in zone 7, but this site puts us in zone 8. Thanks again.
I know of one remontant lace cap, but it's not a macrophylla. It's Hydrangea serrata 'Blue Deckle'. Dirr lists it as remontant. I havn't had mine long enough to experience it. It went in the ground August of '07 from a single stemmed 4" pot. It grew about 2' this season with numerous new shoots but did not produce a single bloom. The foliage is pretty, a lighter green than most hydrangeas with red tinged edges. Pretty enough to keep even if it doesn't bloom, but darn, I want those blue lace caps!
Mary--frost like what you get doesn't bother hydrangeas, they're hardy to zone 5-ish so the frost you get in zone 8 won't cause any problems at all.