When Is Hydrangea Pruning Too Late?

Pruning hydrangeas is crucial for their health and growth. It depends on the type of hydrangea you have, with most shrub-form hydrangeas sold in North America. It is recommended to cut back hydrangeas in early spring, around March or April, to allow spent flowerheads to protect the plant during colder winter months. If your hydrangea blooms on old wood, it is not too late to prune them, as you risk removing flower buds.

Some experts recommend pruning from February if there’s no need to avoid frost protection. However, the consensus is that cutting back in late fall will still produce next year’s flowers. If pruning in early summer, removing buds will prevent new growth from starting.

New wood hydrangeas can be pruned as early as fall and as late as spring, but before new growth starts. Hydrangeas that bloom on new wood can be safely pruned in late fall once the plants have gone dormant or in early spring. The Royal Horticultural Society recommends pruning hydrangeas in late winter or early spring, which is February or March in most of the UK.

Climbing hydrangeas are pruned after flowering in summer, and experts recommend pruning when the weather is dry and mild. Trimming bigleaf hydrangeas back to a set of healthy buds after the flowers have faded in late summer before the plant begins to go dormant is not “too late” from the standpoint of the plant’s health, but it may sacrifice the flowers.