How to cover hydrangeas for the winter and why it is needed

Hortensia is one of the most beautiful ornamental shrubs that can be planted in your garden. Beginner growers often plant this plant. Today one of the most frequently asked questions about this flower is this: how to cover hydrangeas for the winter and why is it even necessary? It must be remembered that these plants can be of different types. It is in accordance with this that the hydrangeas are sheltered for the winter. The most demanding procedure is a large-leaf garden variety. The least need for a hydrangea cover is paniculate and tree-like. Usually, all these species grow on the gardener's site, and each needs a special approach.

How to cover a hydrangea for the winter

First of all, it is necessary to understand how to carry out this procedure with large-leaf hydrangea. It must be remembered that it is highly undesirable to trim this plant, otherwise for the next year the hapless gardener can get an ordinary ugly shrub completely without flowers. This is due to the fact that the hydrangea peduncles are located on the tops of shoots and begin to bloom only in the second year. Cropping them, the gardener destroys the kidneys and deprives the plant of any opportunity to blossom. In addition, one should adhere to a certain technology that explains how to cover hydrangeas for the winter. If you follow the instructions below, then next year the plant will continue to please its owner with lush and very beautiful inflorescences:

• In the middle of autumn (late October or early November), it is necessary to dig very carefully the earth around the hydrangea.
• The bush and the roots of the plant itself should be mulched. Best for this is a mixture of straw and sawdust, which will provide hydrangeas with the necessary heat and access to oxygen. In addition, by spring mulch will turn into a nutrient layer that will help the plant to come to life after the cold.
• The base of the branches can be warmed by covering them with peat.
• On the plant bush it is necessary to put several branches of a tree, pressing them to the ground. In winter, these branches will assume the main gravity of ice and snow and save the hydrangea branches from the fractures. It is incredibly important to preserve the integrity of the kidneys.

How to prepare a hydrangea for winter

The paniculate varieties of this plant are prepared for the cold somewhat differently. They are covered in the following way:

• Directly to the center of the bush is a small slide of a mixture consisting of apple tree leaves and conifers.
• From above it is all pressed down by several dry branches of any tree. This approach will protect the plant from the severity of the snow and prevent young shoots from breaking.
• Among other things, it usually cuts the shoots so that there are three kidneys left on each of them. Do this when the juice has stopped circulating through the plant. Otherwise, it will continue to flow until the death of the whole escape.

Now we know how to cover hydrangeas for the winter. It remains only to say a few words about the tree-like variety of this plant. How to cover hydrangeas for the winter, if they belong to this species? Doing this is absolutely not necessary. Experienced gardeners are limited to a few shovels of the earth, which rush to the base of the bush during the autumn digging of the garden.