Hydrangea tolerates the harsh climate of our country well. But for normal wintering it needs shelter. In the case of this frost-resistant plant, sheltering for the winter will preserve the flower buds. This means that next year it will delight you with beautiful blooms.
Preparing hydrangea for winter
This flowering plant is widely distributed throughout the world. There are over 70 types of hydrangea, but flower growers in our country grow only a few of them. Garden varieties bloom well and delight their owners with a beautiful view. And thanks to its unpretentious care, it is chosen by novice gardeners or those who want to have beautiful flower garden without permanent job in it.
The most popular types of hydrangea in our country are:
- Tree-like
- Paniculata
- large-leaved
As mentioned above, hydrangea is an unpretentious plant. And all the difficulties are associated only with preparing the plant for winter. The more difficult the climate in your area, the more seriously you need to prepare the bushes for wintering.
It has good winter hardiness. Most varieties of this plant tolerate frosts above 30 degrees. It is enough for gardeners to ensure protection of the root system. Cover the bushes in the tree trunk area. No protection of stems is required. Flowers will appear on this year's shoots. What to cover with? Use spruce spruce branches or dry leaves.
Video “How to cover paniculate hydrangea for the winter”
It has no less frost resistance. But in areas with severe frosts in winter it is better to cover it completely. Even if the shoots of this variety of hydrangea freeze, they will quickly recover in the spring. Especially if you carry out feeding and pruning in a timely manner. The flower shoots of the tree variety of this plant appear on the current year's shoots.
The most popular hydrangea in our gardens is. Unfortunately, it is she who has the lowest winter hardiness. Most of its 600 varieties are heat-loving. Some of them can overwinter without shelter in the southernmost regions of Russia. The rest absolutely need to prepare for wintering.
If you are wondering: “Which hydrangeas should be covered for the winter?”, then the answer to this question will be all types of large-leaved varieties of this plant. The thing is that they bloom from last year's buds. And in the absence of proper preparation, they may freeze to death in winter.
Based on this, it should be noted that preparing hydrangea for winter comes down to protecting its root system and flowering buds from low temperatures. A plant severely damaged by low temperatures may weaken and even die. Naturally, there can be no talk of any flowering of the affected bushes.
Video “When to cover large-leaved hydrangea for the winter”
Hydrangea in autumn: Preparing for winter
It is necessary to prepare this plant for wintering. . . back in the spring. In order for it to be well prepared for the cold, it is necessary to organize proper care for it throughout the season. The flower garden where the bushes will grow should be in a slightly shaded place. Based on this, it is necessary to water the bushes only with settled water. One in which the amount of lime is kept to a minimum. If possible, it is better to use rainwater.
Preparations for winter should begin no later than the second part of summer. Nitrogen fertilizers need to be replaced with phosphorus-potassium fertilizers. And at the beginning of autumn it is necessary to exclude watering the bushes and tear off the leaves from the lower parts of the shoots. This will help make the bark rougher and easier to withstand low temperatures.
Leave the top leaves of the bigleaf hydrangea. They will create additional protection flower shoots. Thanks to which they will be better preserved in winter.
Before the onset of cold weather, trim off faded inflorescences. This must be done very carefully so as not to cut off the buds of future inflorescences. If this happened, then there can be no talk of any flowering.
Hydrangea in the fall preparing for winter - pruning
How to cover a hydrangea for the winter
Shelter for the winter of young hydrangea
Young hydrangea of any type needs shelter for the winter. To do this, fill the area under the trunk with dry soil. This will reduce the amount of moisture in the area near the trunk and reduce the risk of death of the lower buds from severe frost. Then you need to do the following:
- Lay the boards near the hydrangea bush and drive nails into them
- Gently press the shoots to the boards and tie them to pre-driven nails
- Cover the bushes with spruce branches or dry leaves (not from fruit trees)
- From above you need to cover everything with a material such as lutrasil or spunbond
How to cover young hydrangea for the winter? You can use the air-dry method. We tie the shoots of one bush together and wrap them with lutrasil. We install a frame made of rigid wire, mesh or thin reinforcement around the bush. The structure should be 10 cm higher than the bush. We fill it with dry leaves and use roofing felt or film to protect them from moisture.
Shelter for the winter of large-leaf hydrangea
The large-leaved variety of this plant can be covered in a similar way. Or use the following option:
- We spread spruce branches around the bushes in a thin layer
- We lay branches on it and secure it in any way
- We also put spruce branches on top and cover them with the above materials.
- We make a layer of sawdust (can be replaced with peat)
- And again we make a layer of spruce branches
- From above you can cover the entire “structure” with roofing felt
The harsher the winter, the more “layered” such a pie should turn out to be. But it is important to cover the bushes so as not to break the shoots from the weight of the materials. You can reduce the risk of this problem by creating a frame.
This method is well suited for tree or paniculate hydrangea in the Urals and in regions with more severe climates.
When to cover hydrangea for the winter
When to cover panicle hydrangea and other types of this plant? It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally. It all depends on the region where your garden is located. Since many species tolerate cold well, their shelter can be postponed until the moment when the thermometer begins to drop to zero degrees at night. If you are growing large-leaved hydrangea, it is better to carry out preparatory procedures earlier. At what temperature should I do this? The main thing is to be in time before the first frost.
We figured out when to cover hydrangeas, and also learned about which types of this plant suffer most from frost. Although this plant is not a picky plant, it reacts very strongly to a lack of care and warmth. If you don’t pay attention to the hydrangea bushes in your garden and don’t cover them for the winter, then they can “respond” to you in kind. That is, poor flowering. If you want your hydrangea to give you bright and lush blooms, take care of this wonderful plant.
In regions with cold winters, only paniculate hydrangeas can safely endure frosts down to -30 degrees. And even they require covering the root system. The remaining species must be carefully covered in the fall, otherwise their branches and growing points will freeze over the winter. About how to prune hydrangeas in the fall, and you can learn about its proper shelter from our article.
Flowering shrubs with gorgeous spherical inflorescences of the most various colors With their blooms they can decorate the garden until autumn. And if they do not require special care during the summer, in the fall it is necessary to carry out a number of procedures to prepare the bushes for the onset of frost.
Such procedures include:
- Specific pruning of some types of hydrangea.
- Feeding bushes in August-September with fertilizers containing potassium and phosphorus. In autumn, hydrangeas are not fertilized with nitrogen.
- From the first month of autumn, gradually reduce watering and reduce it to a minimum by the end of September.
- Tear off all the lower leaves on the shoots so that the stems become woody (leave only the top ones).
- Remove all fallen leaves and debris from around the bushes. All this must be burned so that fungi and pests do not survive in them.
- Taking into account the type of flower, carry out necessary procedure shelters.
Let's look at the first and last points in more detail.
Do I need to prune hydrangeas for the winter?
Basically, pruning of shrubs is done for the purpose of its rejuvenation. What you need to do for this: 
How to cover a hydrangea for the winter?
When all the above procedures have been completed, it’s time to take care of covering the hydrangeas for the winter. The method of shelter depends on the region. In the southern regions there is no need to particularly cover hydrangeas. In Paniculaceae and Tree-like species, it is enough to hill the bush high. But if cold snaps are possible in winter, then cover the young plants with additional peat and non-woven material.
Shelter for winter of large hydrangea bushes
It is quite difficult to bend such plants to the ground, so they are covered in the following way: 
- Fall asleep and spud up trunk circle dry ground.
- The bush is carefully wrapped with a special material - lutrasil, which is secured with tape or rope.
- From metal mesh or wooden planks a frame is built around the shelter.
- The internal space between the bush and the mesh is filled with dry leaves.
- The top of the frame is covered with plastic film or roofing felt.
This air-dry method is impossible would be better suited for not very young Tree and Paniculate hydrangeas.
Covering hydrangea with spruce branches
To implement this method, you will need to prepare:
- metal or wooden staples;
- spruce spruce branches (a lot);
- peat;
- lutrasil;
- brick or boards.
First of all, all the trunk circles of the bushes are covered with spruce branches, on which the stems are laid from the center of the plant to the sides. The shoots at the base are pinned to the ground with staples.
Spruce branches are laid on the lying stems, and the center is filled with peat. Everything is covered with lutrasil on top and pressed against the edges with bricks or boards. Such a shelter will not be able to be disrupted by the wind, and it will be able to protect the plant even in frosts below -40 degrees.
Shelter of young hydrangeas
A small bush can be wrapped for the winter in the following way:
- Cover the trunk circle with dry soil to protect root system and lower buds from freezing.
- Place small boards with nails driven into them around the bushes. The nails must stick out so that the rope can be wound around them.
- Carefully tie the hydrangea bush with a rope and carefully begin to pull it towards the boards.
- Tie the ropes to the nails.
- Cover the shoots with sawdust or cover with spruce branches.
- Cover the top with spunbond, lutrasil (30 grade) or a simple sheet of old iron.
These are the most common ways to cover hydrangeas for the winter. Experienced gardeners They have already adapted and are covering their pets with improvised materials.
You should also know that you should not immediately open the bushes as soon as the first warm days arrive. Night frosts and returning colds can damage plants that have not yet matured. There is no need to be alarmed if you see mold on the shoots after cleaning the shelter. It can simply be washed off with water.
Young plants need to be covered for the winter in any case. But every year their winter hardiness increases, and soon adult paniculate and tree hydrangeas will not need to be covered. It is enough just to hill up their tree trunk circle.
When to cover hydrangea for the winter?
This should be done depending on the weather in your area. Sheltering is usually done with the onset of significant frosts, but the cold has not yet set in. This period occurs in early or mid-October. In warmer areas it may shift to late October. If it’s still quite warm outside, you can first simply hill up the bushes, and when the temperature drops below 0 degrees, start covering the plants.
Hydrangeas in bloom look so beautiful that you simply can’t take your eyes off them. But in order for the bushes to delight with their flowering, they need proper preparation for winter, which consists of pruning and covering the bushes for the winter. And then on next year your garden will be the envy of all your neighbors.
To perennial flowering shrubs have successfully survived the cold, they need to be covered for the winter. Such plants include large-leaved hydrangea, the flowers of which practically freeze out and flowering does not occur.
In order for such a bush to become a real decoration of any garden, you need to prune the hydrangea for the winter and properly prepare it for winter.
Description of the plant
Hydrangea is one of the most common flowering plants for garden decoration. In total there are about 70–80 species of this. The shrub can grow up to 2 meters in height.
It is a deciduous bush with erect shoots and egg-shaped leaves bright green color.
The plant begins to bloom in early summer. The flowering period continues until late autumn at proper care. At the ends of the stems are formed lush spherical inflorescences. The color of the lush inflorescences is bright and varies:
- lilac;
- white;
- pink;
- blue;
- red.
Moreover shade may vary optionally, if you change the composition of the soil in which the shrub grows. For example, in sour inflorescences there will be blue color, and with an alkaline soil composition it will bloom pink. A neutral composition will lead to the flowering of beige inflorescences.
Garden varieties differ abundant flowering and quite easy to care for. With these qualities, hydrangea has always attracted lovers of growing flowers. personal plot. To the most popular varieties Hydrangea for cultivation in Russia includes paniculate, tree-like and large-leaved hydrangea.
Most of the care hassle is associated with protecting the plant in winter. The most winter-hardy is hydrangea paniculata. Varieties of this species are able to survive winter at minus 30 degrees. This is due to the fact that its natural habitat is Sakhalin. To protect it from frost, only the root system needs to be covered. The plant almost never freezes and can withstand harsh conditions, after which it blooms luxuriantly and profusely.
There is an opinion that hydrangea is a capricious plant that requires thorough shelter for the winter to preserve flower buds. This is only partly true, because... applies only to the large-leaved variety. Other species (tree and paniculata) overwinter well without shelter in middle lane Russia. If you don’t know what species the hydrangea growing on your site is, why it doesn’t bloom or doesn’t bloom luxuriantly enough, or how to prepare it for winter, then you may find the answers in this article.
Optimal planting location and soil acidification
All types of hydrangea grow and bloom remarkably in slightly shaded areas, protected from drafts. The soil must be acidified. To do this, red high peat or spruce (pine) litter must be mixed with leaf humus. When planting seedlings, fill with this mixture landing hole. If the bushes are already growing, then top layer The soil must be replaced with the specified mixture or the tree trunk circle should be mulched with it. Hydrangeas require abundant, regular watering throughout the season.
Video lesson about autumn pruning of tree and paniculate hydrangeas
In the spring, during dry weather, the entire frozen part must be cut off to living tissue. At the same time, all thin, crossing and thickening shoots should be removed. After a particularly harsh winter, pruning tree hydrangea may turn out to be too short, this is even beneficial for the plant, because... rejuvenation always contributes to more lush flowering bushes
How to prepare hydrangea for winter
Preparing tree hydrangea for wintering
Tree hydrangea is distinguished by corymbose inflorescences white, which acquire a greenish tint over time
Hydrangea tree is characterized by corymbose white inflorescences, which over time acquire a greenish tint. Old varieties of this variety are absolutely not capricious; they do not require shelter for the winter. But recently bred large-flowered varieties, especially those delivered from nurseries in warm regions, require little hilling. They bloom on the shoots of the current year. If during the frost period the upper part of the shoots freezes, this will have virtually no effect on flowering.
There is advice in the literature that it is not necessary to prune faded inflorescences for the winter, but that this should be done better in spring, this way the underlying buds are better preserved. This is true, but under the weight of snow accumulating on the inflorescences, the shoots may break. Therefore, in late autumn, it is wiser to remove faded inflorescences and non-lignified parts of the shoots, which definitely will not survive the winter. Fallen leaves need to be collected and burned.
Taking care of paniculate hydrangea
Paniculata hydrangea distinguished by pyramidal inflorescences and brown-red shoots
Hydrangea paniculata is taller than its tree-like relative. Its leaves are darker, and young shoots have a burgundy-brown tint. Its inflorescences are pyramidal and dense. At first they are greenish, then white, and by the end of the season they become dirty pink. It also blooms on the shoots of the current year. Overwinters without shelter. To fully guarantee the safety of the root system, it is advisable to cover the bushes with garden soil. Its pruning is carried out by analogy with a tree.
How to cover large-leaved hydrangea
Large-leaved hydrangea that requires reliable shelter in winter
The second name for large-leaved hydrangea is macrophylla. This is this sissy and capricious one. Without reliable shelter for the winter, pink or blue inflorescences cannot be seen. It blooms on last year's shoots. During flowering, it is impossible to take your eyes off it, it is so good, so flower growers make every effort to preserve the flower buds.
Ways to cover hydrangeas for the winter
First shelter option
Shoots of large-leaved hydrangea are bent to the ground, secured, covered with spruce branches and film
Before sheltering, it is advisable to remove thin and intersecting shoots and collect all remaining and fallen leaves on the plant. The bush needs to be divided, taking into account the direction of growth of the shoots, tied in parts, bent to the ground and secured. The shoots are usually flexible and do not break. Cover with lutrasil, agrospan or any other non-woven material. Sprinkle a decent layer of dry leaves from healthy trees on top, put some film or something to prevent it from getting wet (a sugar bag, for example). And finally, throw on a piece of old rug. You may get the impression that under such cover the bushes are hiding, nothing of the sort.
Second cover option
Reliable shelter for a large-leaved hydrangea bush
You need to pour several buckets into the base of the prepared bush (without leaves and inflorescences) and the area where the roots are located. garden soil. Place low plants around wooden boxes. Place hydrangea shoots on them and secure them using the slots of the stands. Cover with several layers of agrospan or similar material, and cover with film on top.
You cannot rush into disclosure, otherwise all your efforts will be in vain. Large-leaved hydrangeas can cause a lot of damage return frosts. Exact time It is difficult to indicate the opening, it depends on the growing region, for example, in the Moscow region it occurs at the beginning of May. It happens that after removing the cover, mold is noticeable on the shoots, this is not a problem. It is simply washed off with water or a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
Shelter for young hydrangeas of any kind
Young hydrangea covered with dry leaves. Subsequently, this structure must be covered with film.
The first wintering of a young hydrangea of any kind in a new place is the most difficult period. Shelter is a must. In autumn, the seedling should be trimmed, leaving about 8 cm. Remove all leaves. Cover the bush with dry litter or peat to its entire height, lay several spruce branches, and cover the top with film, securing it with stones. You can do it differently: put a fence around the plant, for example, metal mesh. Fill all the resulting space with dry leaves and stretch the film on top.
Blooming hydrangeas are beautiful. To contemplate this splendor, you need to know their species and properly organize wintering.
Hydrangea (Hydrangea) is a beautiful ornamental shrub; there are several common types of this plant. Depending on the type, the shrub is covered for the winter. We will analyze in detail each option for preparing for wintering.
Garden large-leaved hydrangea needs the most careful care and warm shelter for the winter. G. paniculata is less in need of this, and G. tree-like can do without any shelter at all.
Shelter of large-leaved hydrangea
I bought this bush 4 years ago. I bought large-leaved hydrangea of the Hamburg variety as a garden, the bush did not grow higher than 50 cm, the shoots are brittle and almost lie on the ground. I manage to grow it like garden plant(can also be grown in a pot).
Once I cut it off, leaving branches 20 cm long from the ground, no more. The next summer it bloomed very weakly and hardly grew. So I advise owners of low-growing species to be careful and not to prune the branches of this plant, as next year’s flower buds are laid on them.
Cut only dry branches before winter. If you have tall large-leaved garden hydrangea, then you need to cut it at a height of no more than three buds from the end of each branch.
So, at the end of October (for central Russia), I recommend carefully digging up the soil around the plant.
Then add some sawdust or wood shavings under the bush on the roots of the plant. I do not recommend filling it with soil, as it will place too heavy a load on the base of the branches. You can use peat.
Cover the entire bush with pine needles or place spruce branches between the branches of the plant, covering the base of the bush.
You can cover the large-leaved hydrangea with lutrasil, or put a special bag of covering material on top of the bush (if the size of the bush allows) by tightening a string at the base.
I tried to put a lutrasil bag on the bush, but the bush no longer fit into it. I won’t worry about this, since the pine needles do an excellent job of being a warm, hygroscopic “blanket” for my large-leaved hydrangea. The needles also contribute to soil acidification, which the plant loves.
Then place several dry tree branches (any kind) on top of the bush.
In winter, the bush will be covered with snow, which will sometimes thaw, forming a heavy ice crust. Dry branches will take the load and the bush will not break. This is important in order to preserve next year's flower buds.
Shelter paniculata hydrangea
I also have G. paniculata Grandiflora growing. I cover it like this: I pour a pile of apple leaves and pine needles into the center of the bush, lightly pressing them down with several dry branches of any tree.
The bush can be pruned into three buds, but I prefer to leave a few dry inflorescences for the winter. They look beautiful against the background of sparkling snow cover.
I don’t cover the tree hydrangea, except to throw a couple of shovels of earth into the bush during autumn digging. This species tolerates winter well even without shelter - after all, lignified shoots are more frost-resistant.
Video on the topic
