The creamy white snowball hydrangea "Annabelle" with its large, ball-shaped flowers is a beautiful eye-catcher that also thrives in shady gardens. In contrast to the farmer's hydrangea, snowball hydrangeas bloom on new wood, which is why a vigorous pruning in spring makes sense.
A professional pruning in spring promotes flowering of snowball hydrangea
Snowball Hydrangeas: Cut back in spring
Usually, hydrangeas are divided into two groups with regard to pruning measures: The first group blooms on old, previous year's wood and must therefore not be cut back in spring under any circumstances. The second group, which also includes snowball hydrangeas, blooms on the new, this year's wood and should therefore be pruned vigorously in spring. The shade-tolerant snowball hydrangea "Annabelle" can even be cut back almost to the ground. This causes a more lush flower stocking with particularly large flower balls. A moderate pruning is sufficient, especially for younger specimens. The best way to cut is as follows:
- Use sharp and clean secateurs.
- Cleanliness is particularly important so that any germs or fungi cannot penetrate the open cuts.
- Now cut off all the shoots except for about 15 to 20 centimeters above the ground.
- About three to five eyes should remain.
- The hydrangea will sprout again from these eyes.
The snowball hydrangea "Annabelle" should be pruned from March, but no later than April. This measure is particularly important when the old shoots have frozen back in winter. Dead plant parts and frozen shoots not only look ugly, but also offer fungi and viruses the best living conditions.
Maintenance cut if necessary
To encourage continuous flowering, you should always cut off any faded flowers. When the flowers have been pollinated, the plant forms seeds and spends most of its energy on this. This is at the expense of further flowering. However, if it is prevented from doing so by continuously removing the faded inflorescences, the plant will produce new flowers over a longer period of time. If you cut back part of the shoots around mid-June, the flowering will be delayed overall - "Annabelle" flowers from June after all - but it will drag on into September. Regularly cutting out everything that has faded also stimulates further flowering, with "Annabelle" fading very nicely. As they fade, the creamy-white flowers turn light green and last a very long time.
tips and tricks
Incidentally, the hydrangea seeds hide in the inner, fertile part of the flower - the magnificent flowers that we like so much about hydrangeas are only sterile show flowers. That's why you shouldn't hope for seeds to propagate the "Annabelle" snowball hydrangea, but instead rely on cuttings. Propagation by division usually works very well.