The way to Prune Woman in Red Hydrangeas
“Lady in Red” hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla “Lady in Red”) flowers, leaves and comes show a deep red color. Grown in U. S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 6 through 9, “Lady in Red” is a lacecap hydrangea, demonstrating clusters of small flowers with a flat top. Lacecap hydrangeas bloom on old wood, which means you have to prune the “Lady in Red” after the flowering period, typically in July, so the wood has time to develop flower buds before winter. “Lady in Red” is a compact plant with a naturally rounded shape, so only light pruning is required.
Disinfect a set of bypass pruners in a 10-percent solution of diluted bleach, using one part bleach to 9 parts water.
Cut off all dead flower flowers, which makes an angled cut below the expired flower cluster and only above a leaf grass.
Eliminate dead wood back to the ground. If there are broken stems, cut them back to the nearest healthy leaf grass.
Keep the safest, most powerful or youngest of 2 rubbing or crossing stems and trim the weaker stem closer to the ground to start the interior of the plant to air circulation.
Cut any inward-growing comes back to a outward-facing leaf bud on the stem, forcing the stem to branch out in the management of the leaf grass.
Cut back as much as one-third of person stem lengths, if needed, to form the plant. Although “Lady in Red” is fairly compact, you might occasionally have some more, straggly stems to dominate. Cut these back about one quarter inch over an outward-facing leaf grass.
Rejuvenate the plant if it is over five years old and you observe a lack of growth or blooms. Rejuvenation takes three years to complete. Cut one among the earliest divisions back to the ground from the very first year. In the next summer, remove the other one-third of those divisions, eliminating the rest handful of old divisions in the third year.