Sun Blasted Hydrangea

toby.swire

Hi 

I have a four or five mophead plants that have been utterly hammered by the hot weather, and contemplating what to do - is it best to:

A - Cut them right back, encourage new growth but expect zero flowers next year

B - Just dead head the stems affected - that is most of them, the flowers that are left have lost colour but could still regenerate

C - suck it up, it is what its is

D - Another solution?

Thanks for views and replies etc in advance!

Obelixx

Give them a big drink.  5 to 10 litres each every day for the next week or so and then every other day till normal rain service is resumed.  Give it some liquid tomato food, seaweed or comfrey feed.   

Remove any obvious dead heads that don't recover after being watered and cut out one third of the stems right at the base , selecting the oldest, brownest, most gnarled looking.  That way it can produce vigorous new shoots which will flower next year.  If you take out a third of the oldest stems every year you'll have a completely regenerated shrub in 3 years' time.

Lyn

I’d be inclined to just see it’s well watered and leave the dead leaves on it for now, we still have more hot weather to come, at least those dried up bits will save the next lot of growth, cut put it back now and the sun will scorch the next lot. 

Nanny Beach

Yes clue is in the name they are Japanese woodland plants, ours has very small flowers this year, wrong time to prune, we have watered it well at the base, and hoping for the best.

toby.swire

Thanks guys - I've taken the more water approach initially, but will make a call based on what results that brings!

Lyn

What’s dried out won’t come back but may help with the next heatwave.