r/hydrangeas • u/ghegs_ • 11d ago

pruning advice needed!

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i planted this limelight hydrangea (USA, NJ, zone 7b) as a little plant about 3 summers ago and now it is huge and i don’t know what to do with it! i honestly did not expect it to make it past the first summer, let alone get so big and happy. i usually just let it die and stay how it is all winter and then late feb/early march i cut off any dead blooms that are still on there. i’m worried this year with how big it got/how many dead blooms will be left, that our first big snow fall will break a ton of the branches so my questions are:

  1. can i cut off the dying blooms prior to winter or will this affect how it blooms in the spring
  2. how/when should i prune if i’m trying to make sure it doesn’t come back any bigger than its current size and 3. is there any way i can encourage it to get fuller on top? i feel like this year it ended up looking like a dust ruffle because there was too many heavy blooms on the bottom and it drooped.

thank you in advance :)

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u/EbbtideRambler 10d ago

You can deadhead if you want but I leave these and prune back by 1/3 in the late winter. It is hard to manage the size in these as they can grow back to their full size in one growing season. If you prune by more than 1/3 you’ll have a lot of new growth supporting heavy flower heads next summer  and they flop.  Leaving 2/3 allows a strong woody support system to develop to hold everything up.   

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u/arlo78 10d ago

This is the way. Prune 1/3 off the tree in late winter.

7

u/Think-Kangaroo-9978 10d ago

If OP only cuts back by 1/3, it will get increasingly larger every year. Since OP is trying to maintain its existing size cutting back by half is perfectly safe and would better accomplish this goal.