Hortensia is an amazingly beautiful and loved by many gardeners flower. In nature, there is a huge number of different types of hydrangeas, which are externally different in form of inflorescence and color scheme. However, it should be noted that this shrub is a fairly thermophilic plant, so it is worthwhile in advance to prepare the hydrangea for winter.
How to prepare a hydrangea for winter?
A number of measures aimed at protecting the plant, mainly depend on your climatic conditions, as well as on the type of hydrangea. The most common species of this beautiful shrub are: hydrangea paniculate, arborescent and garden .
The panicle hydrangea is quite resistant to frost. However, its root system is located quite close to the surface of the soil and therefore, with the onset of winter, it requires mandatory shelter of the stump. Also less resistant to frost is the treelike hydrangea. But the garden hydrangea requires special care when preparing for the winter, because for those who live in a rather cold climatic region, its cultivation can become a real problem. Thus, whichever species is winter-hardy, any hydrangeas needs shelter for the winter.
So, to begin with in September, you need to stop watering the plant, and to ensure that the shoots are more lignified and could survive the cold, all the lower leaves should be removed. Even when the air temperature in the street is minus from the bush, it is necessary to remove the remaining leaves, except the uppermost ones, which are the protection of the apical flower buds. Also, hydrangea bushes hill to a height of 30 cm and proceed to shelter.
How to keep a hydrangea in winter - ways of shelter
There are a lot of ways of hiding the hydrangeas for the winter, we will only present to you a few of them.
Method 1At the base of the bush lay the wooden boards with hammered nails. Then the branches of the plant should be tied with a rope, gently tipped to the ground, laid on the boards and tied to nails. After that, the bush should be covered with a layer of spruce lapnik or dry sawdust and all pressed with a piece of wood. From the top, you can also cover with another layer of sawdust or dry leaves, and, best of all, cover with a large piece of lutrasil.
Method 2
To start, the hydrangea bush should be wrapped with lutrasil and fixed with scotch tape or twine. Further, above the plant, 12-15 cm high from the plant, it is necessary to build a frame from the grid, which then is filled with dry leaves. All this from above again to cover with lutrasilom or usual polyethylene film.
Method 3
We distribute sprawling branches of the plant with a rope or wire. Then around the bush we wrap the ruberoid with a length of 1.5-2 m and fill it with dry foliage. It is important that the distance between the bush and the walls of the roofing material is at least 10 cm. How to cut a hydrangea for the winter and cut it in autumn in general?
It is worth remembering that the garden hydrangea blooms on the last year's shoots. Therefore, this type of plant practically does not need
As for treelike and paniculate hydrangeas, they blossom on the shoots of the current year, so autumn pruning can only go to their advantage and improve flowering.
In the fall, only dry inflorescences are removed from the hydrangea bush. This is done so that the branches of the plant do not break in winter under the weight of snow.
The main pruning of hydrangeas is done in the early spring, before the sap flow begins. This removes damaged after the winter, small and thin branches, as well as shortened annual shoots.