This is a great question that has been on my mind lately too. I planted two of these and last spring we moved one of them because it ended up in a position it didn't like. They are both doing well, thankfully we had a lot of rain this year. The one I moved in spring has a great shape and has the room to do what it wants. The second one that has been in the same position for two years, has an odd shape to it. Most of the branches are well positioned, but then it has two that are very awkward looking. One is so close to the ground that it is rooting and the second one is coming away from the rest in an odd angle looking out of place. I am tempted to cut the whole thing back to the ground and let it try again to find it's own natural shape, but just can't bring myself to lose two years of growth. The only other option I can think of is to cut off the two odd branches and leave the center branches and hope that it will sprout new side branches to make up the difference. Any thoughts? I hope this is along the same line as the original question, if not I can post a separate thread. Thanks :-) pm2

I usually do not have to deahead because the plants "self clean" during the winter months. Annabelle is the one that keeps the blooms sometimes. On those occasions (when the blooms are still there as Spring begins), I deadhead them. But some people do not like them and they can be deadheaded earlier like when the plant goes dormant or even when they turn brown. As for fertilizers, I use 1/2 cup to 1 cup of cottonseed meal or composted manure of plain ole regular compost about 0-2 weeks after my last average date of last frost. During the rest of the growing season, I may add some coffee grounds, liquid fish of liquid seaweed. I stop adding all fertilizers by the start of July (it is way too hot then and I want the plants to go dormant when Fall arrives). See the following links: for information on deadheading, go to the link below. Scroll down to the section titled "PRUNING: METHOD TWO" and scroll UPWARDS to the two pargraphs titled "REMOVING OLD BLOOMS" http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/pruning.html

So we have some hydrangeas (blue and purple flowers - two types, and looking at some pictures online they are mopheads and lacecaps). I am not sure which cultivar as it was planted by the previous owner. Last summer I did not prune them and now they are overgrown in the front flower bed. Same for the loropetalums (we have the ruby red). My question is would it be ok if I pruned these now (before spring) or would it drastically reduce the blooms this spring/ summer? I heard mopheads and lacecaps set blooms on stems from the previous season for the current season. Does this mean I should thin the bush out (i.e. cut 50% of the stems down to the base) so that I will still have some blooms or should I prune all stems to half the height? Same question goes for the loropetalum. Thanks for helping me out with this!

You can wait until late May and -if you are near the border with Canada or in Canada- wait until early June. Then prune them all the way down if they have not leafed out or very carefully do a scratch test to see if you see "green" on the stem. Some of those stems can be surprisingly tricky so by waiting until then, you are giving them a last chance. For example, I had one stem that leafed out in multiple places and looked very healthy. Then the top pair of leaves died, probably from winter issues. The stem was still green so I waited. It then started browning out so I did the scratch test and there was still green underneath. But it fizzled and died so, I cut the top few inches that were browned out (there were leaves below that part of the stem and I kept those). Then there are stems that just fail to leaf out completely. Because leaf out happens quite early here sometimes (Feb-April), I give these stems until early to mid May to leaf out. If they do not leaf out by then, I cut them all the way down because, when I waited until the end of May, none of them ever leafed out. With time, you will get an idea of how long to wait in your area.