Hydrangea advice needed please

poppie123

For years i had an absolutely beautiful Hydrangea which was outside my front door.
The house faces north so i was always surprised that it flowered as much as it did and grew so large.

Anyway going back 2 years ago my partner (who knows nothing about gardening) thought he was helping and decided to prune it rather late in the year, last year it did not flower at all.:(

Even worse was to come when i arrived home from holiday last year i found he and his father had cut it down to the ground :eek: :mad:
Apparantly they had decided that it was too big and needed doing.

Now it has grown back and looks very healthy but it's just leaves, there are no flowers or buds to be seen at all.

Will it ever flower again??

Orange_King

Must have been a shock to its system getting scalped in that fashion. I have never had problems with pruning back a reasonable amount of the stems, usually in late January as the new growth is starting to appear. Not sure if this is the right time but it works for me.

poppie123

I know, tell me about it, i could have killed them both.:mad:

I am just hoping and praying that if i leave it alone this year it may flower next year if i am lucky.
Nobody i know has even hacked their hydrangea to the ground before, that's why i asked if it will ever flower again.

Orange_King

Hopefully it will recover for you. I look after the ones Mum has in her front garden, also North facing, and they have superb blooms every year.

angelavdavis

Have you fed it? It might be worth feeding it to give it a boost for next year. A top dressing of well rotted horse manure around its base should do the trick.

Mojisola

It should be fine. I've had to do a similar hard prune to one and it came back better than ever. There's no reason why a hard prune should stop it flowering in future.

Teach your OH to remove about a third of the old, woody shoots at the end of the winter and the bush should stay manageable. Ban him from pruning it at any other time!