Currently, quite a few owners of country houses plant various flowers on their site. Someone does it for beauty, but there are gardeners who sell flowering plants and make money from it. The most important thing is to provide the flowers with the right care, and then they will delight you with their appearance.
One of the most beautiful flowering shrubs is rightly considered hydrangea. To date, this plant has approximately a hundred species that differ in resistance to low temperatures, bush size and leaf shape. It is interesting that the color of the hydrangea flowers themselves does not depend on the variety, but on the level of soil acidity. And the plant can please the owner in different years with white, cream, pink, bright raspberry or even blue inflorescences. Common features for all plants are the height of the bush is not more than one and a half meters, large dark green leaves with jagged edges (can be sharp or wavy) and a long flowering period from mid-summer to late autumn. Before you grow hydrangea in the garden healthy and luxuriantly flowering, you should familiarize yourself with the rules of its maintenance, since the plant is quite capricious.
Watering Recommendations
So how to grow hydrangea in the garden? The rules of care in the first place state that the recommendations for watering are strictly adhered to. The shrub is very sensitive to regular moisture and water quality. In no case should the soil dry out, since the plant is quite hygrophilous. Ideally, watering should be done a couple of times a week, depending on the weather. Too dry summers in the southern regions may require more watering, and cool rainy weather, on the contrary, can reduce it. To keep the soil moist for a long time, the trunk circle of the bush must be mulched.
Organic materials such as:
- sawdust;
- hay;
- needles;
- straw and so on.
It is best to mulch the plant immediately after planting or perform the procedure annually in early spring, even before the sun begins to bake. The watering procedure should always be carried out only in the morning or in the evening, excluding the possibility of drops falling on leaves and buds, the plant does not like this.
Water selection
To water this plant, you should choose water according to certain rules. It is forbidden to take it from the tap, since such water is oversaturated with chlorine harmful to the bush. The result will be leaf chlorosis, requiring additional costs for further treatment of hydrangea. Also, irrigation can provoke rotting of the root system, if you use stagnant water for this. So how to grow hydrangea in the garden? Water it only with warm and not hard water.
Plant nutrition
High hydrangea requirements for growing conditions apply to the nutrition of shrubs, without which it is impossible to obtain abundant and prolonged flowering. The plant should be fed with various mixtures, depending on its needs at different times of the year. So, in early spring, the bush should be fed with a mixture of urea and potassium sulfate, which will form and accelerate the vegetation process. For this, each component must be taken in 0.5 tablespoons and diluted in half a bucket of water, then pour everything under one bush. Strength and strength of the future branches will also give and watering the plants in early spring with a weak solution of potassium permanganate.
Before you grow hydrangea in the garden lushly blooming, you should feed it even during the formation of buds. The mixture for this is prepared from superphosphate, the concentration of which on a bucket of water is one tablespoon. Already during the flowering of the plant, attention should also be paid to adequate nutrition, which will ensure uninterrupted flowering of buds until autumn. So, in the middle of summer, it can be used to feed nitrofosku, "Agricola" or "Kemira flower." All of them are bred on a bucket of water for 1 tablespoon. Such top dressing will not only extend the life of the flowers, but also increase their number on the bush. Any fertilizer should be applied under the plant no more than twice a month and, if possible, try to alternate mineral fertilizers with organic ones. As the latter, mullein, chicken infusion and so on are perfect.
Autumn top dressing should provide the plant with a good wintering. At this time, hydrangea should be fed with superphosphate and potassium sulfate in equal proportions also in a bucket of water (1 tablespoon each). Pouring under each bush is enough 5-7 liters. At that time, mulching the soil with peat, humus or compost, which should be laid out with a layer of at least 5 cm, will be excellent as organic materials.
Plant formation
Even if all the above conditions are met, the question of how to grow hydrangea in the garden, the care of which is painstaking enough, remains open. The fact is that without proper pruning, flowering and growth of the bush will not be high-quality even with sufficient nutrition. It is necessary to form a crown of a bush in the spring or in the fall, and it is possible and twice a year. The main thing in this process is to cut the branches when they do not yet have buds that have opened or all buds have already faded on them. Carefully cut out not only frozen and weak branches, but also those that grow in the center of the bush. Annual shoots can be cut almost at the root, leaving a few buds, and can be shortened slightly, depending on the plant variety. The fact is that some varieties of hydrangea bloom only on the branches of past years, and some are already on young annual shoots.
If a plant tends to produce buds only on branches of past years, then pruning young shoots will harm them; in the case of flowering on young branches, on the contrary, it will stimulate. For hydrangea species with flowering on last year's shoots, it is important to prune only in the fall and not too abundant, only to rejuvenate the bush.
Time, place and landing rules
Since this plant is rather capricious and sensitive, its seedlings can be placed in open ground only after thorough hardening in fresh air and growing in greenhouse conditions for at least two years. It is best to carry out a transplant in the spring, so that the plant has managed to take root sufficiently during the warm season. Of course, in warm regions they don’t adhere to this rule too much, since it’s not difficult to grow hydrangea in the garden, which can be planted here in the fall.
A place for shrubs is better to choose a well-lit or partial shade with direct sunlight at the beginning or end of the day. A pit is dug up the size of a crown of a bush or twice the size of an earthen coma of a plant. Usually, when planting young seedlings, such a pit is half a meter in depth and the same in diameter.
Soil should be:
- nutritious;
- neutral (ideally acidic);
- good air permeability;
- adsorb moisture quickly.
On alkaline soils, various acidifiers or peat should be used. Also, a complex of fertilizers from urea, superphosphate and potassium sulfate is added to the pit for planting. The hydrangea root system must be healthy for quick adaptation to the new environment, so all roots are looked through and removed moldy or rotten. After planting, the soil around the bush is mulched to preserve moisture in the soil, as well as to prevent the appearance of weeds and root overheating. Over time, the mulch will rot, nourishing the plant, and you will need to add.
When considering how to properly grow hydrangea in the garden when planting several plants, be sure to consider the optimal distance between the bushes. For comfortable growth, they must be placed at a distance of not less than a meter from each other, and preferably one and a half.
Bush propagation
Few people are interested in the question of how to grow hydrangea in the garden from seeds, since this process is long and laborious. It is much easier to propagate the plant by cuttings or dividing the bush. If there is already a hydrangea bush on the site, then just dig it out, divide it into several parts with roots and shoots and sprinkle the damaged spots with coal dust, then simply plant each part as a separate plant in its place.
If the existing bush is still too small or the owner just had the opportunity to get a stalk, then you need to cut it off from the side annual shoot. From the branch, remove all leaves, except 4-8 pieces, and root it in a mixture of peat and sand (2: 1). After this, the prepared soil is mulched with another layer of sand, and a stalk is planted at a depth of one centimeter into the main nutrient layer at an angle of 45 ° , so that the leaves do not touch the soil. Best of all, cuttings take root in mid-summer, but the temperature for this should be no more than 20 ° , so it is better to plant in a shelter.
Negative factors
It is impossible to answer the question of how to grow hydrangea in the garden, the planting and care of which are described above without knowledge of possible diseases, pests and how to eliminate them. Insufficient nutrition of the bush with iron is manifested most often in this plant, causing yellowing of the entire surface of the leaves, except for the veins. The solution to the problem is to feed the plant with iron in special mixtures or by foliar application of iron sulfate and citric acid (1: 2). Hydrangea can also be watered with such a mixture, but at especially advanced stages.
Frequent problems of the bush are white and gray rot, since the plant needs frequent watering, as well as powdery mildew. Diseases are eliminated by treating hydrangea with fungicides. Pests that are dangerous for this shrub are spider mites and leaf aphids, from which insecticide treatment helps.
Panicle hydrangea
Before growing hydrangea in a garden in the Urals, you should correctly choose the ideal variety for this climate, which is the plant in question. Panicled hydrangea can be left without shelter for the winter, only by abundantly mulching the soil around it with humus. Pits for planting this variety are needed large, because the roots grow very actively. Bushes are planted at a distance of more than two meters from each other. If necessary, plant a hedge for a plant to dig trenches and plant bushes with the same distance. This spring should be carefully thinned out for plentiful flowering and leave no more than 10 buds on young shoots. When landing, you can leave no more than six at all.
Tree shrub
This species is resistant to cold, so the answer to the question of how to grow hydrangea in a garden in Siberia would not be complete without considering this variety. A large pit is also necessary for landing, the main thing is that groundwater does not reach its bottom. Landing can be done in early spring, adding humus and a complex of mineral fertilizers to the planting pit. All shoots of this hydrangea should be cut in the spring by more than half. Only young shrubs need shelter for the winter, while the rest is required to thoroughly mulch the soil with compost or humus.
Heat-loving grade
How to grow hydrangea in the Crimea garden? To do this, you can choose any species, but among the thermophilic who do not take root in other regions, large-leaf hydrangea stands out. For its planting, a pit in diameter and a depth of only 30 cm is enough, while the distance between plants can be 1 meter. Annual pruning of the variety is not carried out in spring, but when planting, shoots should be shortened, leaving no more than 4 buds. For the winter, the bush should be covered by laying branches on the boards and covered with fallen leaves, and opened only when the threat of frost disappears.
Distinctive features of varieties
Before growing hydrangea in the garden, you should carefully select the ideal variety for a particular region. As a rule, almost all varieties can be planted in the middle lane and in the south, and frost-resistant should be given attention to the northern regions. Treelike and panicled hydrangeas are considered the best in this regard, but even they need to be protected in winter from severe frosts.
How to grow hydrangea in the garden of the middle lane? To do this, you can choose any plant variety, the main thing is to carefully hide heat-loving shrubs from freezing for the winter.
The southern regions can safely shelter any variety of this amazing shrub in their garden.
An exhaustive answer to the question of how to grow hydrangea in the garden, a photo of which is simply mesmerizing with its beauty, was presented above. All the features of reverent care for the shrub will be more than justified by its amazing appearance, and over the long years of its growth on the site, all procedures will become less burdensome. Interestingly, with proper care, some varieties are able to bloom profusely for more than half a century, and rejuvenate them with a fairly ordinary cutting of the bush.