Hydrangea cuttings: step-by-step plan for more flowers in the summer

In the summer you see it everywhere: hydrangea . It blooms exuberantly all summer long with enormous balls, beautiful plumes or exuberant flower heads. We can't get enough of it! Fortunately, cutting a hydrangea is easy. This way you can quickly fill borders in your garden or large pots with even more hydrangeas.

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The best time to take cuttings from hydrangeas is later in the summer. You take so-called half-ripe cuttings from new growth: they are woody at the bottom, soft at the top. The woody bottom prevents the cuttings from rotting.

Whether you want to cut and propagate a panicle hydrangea, hydrangea 'Annabelle' or oakleaf hydrangea: this old method works with every hydrangea species!

Collect a number of strong, non-flowering shoots of 10-15 cm that have at least two pairs of leaves below the top pair. Keep them in a humid bag to prevent them from losing all their moisture before you start cutting.

After collecting your strong material, get started right away. Cut the cutting diagonally under a leaf node. Then remove the leaves on the lower leaf nodes by cutting them as close to the stem as possible.

Cut the large leaves in half. This will help to slow the evaporation of moisture from your plant and will prevent stress to your plant during rooting. Don't worry about the leaves: once the cutting has roots, new leaves will quickly grow.

Push each cutting into its own pot filled with well-draining cutting soil. Press the soil down and immediately give it a generous portion of water. Place the cuttings in a covered growing tray or cover them with a transparent plastic bag. It is best to place them in a light, sheltered spot. In the spring you can repot the rooted cuttings.

Tip! Do you have a hydrangea that is in the wrong place? Read more in this article about transplanting hydrangeas . Does your hydrangea suffer from diseases or other problems? With these tips for caring for hydrangeas, it will be fine!

You may have heard of other ways to propagate hydrangea cuttings. We list 3 more methods and explain why they unfortunately do not work well.

Hydrangea is less suitable for cuttings in water. Cutting soil works better as a cutting medium for the woody stems of this plant.

In general, the following applies to cuttings: the poorer the soil, the better. That is why cutting soil also has few nutrients. Hydrangea cuttings in potatoes are therefore not necessary and probably make little sense. The idea is that the potato keeps the cutting moist and provides nutrients, but the cutting itself already has everything it needs to grow into a plant.

By the same principle, cutting a hydrangea in banana would provide extra nutrients or growth hormone for your young plant, but even if it worked, your cutting doesn't need it at all! Cutting directly into the ground is just as easy and works fine for a hydrangea.