How to properly store hydrangea at home

Experienced gardeners assure that, knowing just a few important nuances, anyone who wishes will be able to grow hydrangea and enjoy it year after year.

How to properly prepare hydrangea for storage

To begin with, you should not forget that only hydrangeas that already have mature wood can be stored in winter. To achieve this, you need to start preparing garden hydrangea for wintering, starting in early autumn. During this period, all lower leaves must be removed from the bush.

With the arrival of the first persistent cold weather (+5°C...0°C), each shoot must be cleaned, using garden shears or a sharp knife, from the inflorescences and leaves that still remain. Parts of the leaf petioles should remain on the branches. After seven days, they will become dry and fall off on their own. This way, there will be no “wounds” left on the plant. After this, the bushes need to be fed with fertilizers containing phosphorus and potassium.

You cannot store hydrangea for the winter, with leaves and petioles on the branches. They will soon become moldy and the flower may die.You should not cut or break off the tops of the shoots. This protects the kidneys from frost.

Proper digging of hydrangea before wintering

It is possible to save flower seedlings before planting only if you dig up its roots with a large lump of soil. You can start this process after the thermometer mark drops to 0 °C.

See the video “Preparing hydrangea for wintering. Basic conditions":

Sometimes gardeners leave bushes directly in the pots where they grew in the summer. This is naturally more convenient. In this case, there is no need to dig up the hydrangea.

Proper storage of hydrangea bushes in the cellar

You need to send the plant for saving only to a properly prepared place. First, the cellar must be whitened with slaked lime or other substances that prevent the formation of mold and the development of parasitic individuals. The cellar must be properly ventilated. Because in a damp room, hydrangea may die.

See the video “How to preserve hydrangea in winter”:

The temperature should always be low, otherwise the shoots will begin to grow prematurely. Young hydrangea seedlings need to overwinter in containers with drainage holes. They will not allow moisture to stagnate during winter watering.

If there are no containers, then the roots with a lump of earth should be wrapped in several layers of special material (lutrasil or spandbond). Regular film is definitely not suitable for this. The roots will be locked in it.

Proper storage of hydrangea seedlings on a balcony

It is quite possible to preserve flower bushes until spring on a glassed-in balcony or veranda. The only main thing is that the thermometer readings are always within the same limits.

If the temperature rises and the buds swell prematurely, you should not move the flower to a warmer room and start intensive watering. Due to the fact that at a temperature of +10°C, hydrangea is still in winter dormancy and the leaves will not germinate under such conditions.

See the video “Large-leaved hydrangea in winter”:

You can protect a hydrangea in a pot even in an ordinary room, if the bushes are not very large in size or if they were purchased in the winter in a blooming state and with leaves. They can be placed on window sills, watered from time to time and providing them with additional lighting. Then, before planting, the plant must get used to the outdoor conditions; to do this, it will need to be gradually taken out into the fresh air, starting for half an hour and gradually increasing this time.

Huge hydrangea seedlings are difficult to send to any room for storage without preliminary pruning (by 20-30 cm). But this will not harm such a mature flower, only the bush will bloom at the end of August or even in October.