The blue flowered hydrangea you received from your friend would be hydrangea macrophylla. It blooms on wood produced the previous year (old wood), pruning in Fall, Winter or Spring would remove the flower buds for this year. These form next years flower buds in late summer or earliest fall as the days get shorter and temperatures cool off. To reduce the risk of removing these buds, prune just as the flowers begin to fade. Of course you'll want to remove any dead or winter damaged stems, and the faded flowers themselves if they are still on the plant.

Thanks morz8. I guess I'll hold off on more pruning until shortly after it blooms, which will probably be next week at the rate things are going here on the east coast, hahaha! Hopefully I'll get at least a few flowers in spite of the pruning it got last fall.

Hi. I'm in zone 7a, don't know what zone you're in, but it may not matter.

I agree with morz8. But I have some additional comments.

The plants that you received from your friend were probably badly shocked by being dug up during the summer. So, heavy pruning probably helped them out for their first season in your yard, and helped them to recover.

However, don't do that again. As morz8 explained, you won't get any bloom if you prune drastically.

Here's how I prune hydrangeas in my yard. I don't do anything at all in the fall. Just leave them alone. Wait until the new growth starts in the spring. In my zone, this is in March. Now, you will be doing 2 things when you prune:

1 - prune each stem just above (1 inch) the new growth.

2 - prune (close to the ground or trunk) any stems which have no new growth at all. These branches are dead (this is normal) and will just form a thicket of dead stuff after several years.

Now, just to be thorough, many of the new modern hydrangeas bloom both on old wood and new wood, meaning that drastic pruning would not eliminate bloom for the year. But, your hydrangeas are most likely the old-fashioned ones. Blooming only on old wood. Don't prune themn drastically.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Annie for the additional helpful information. I really wasn't sure exactly what I was looking at, so I decided to wait before I did anything else.

The rather vigorous leafing out from the bottom and on just a few of the stalks, which started happening about a month ago, made me wonder if that was all that was going to happen this year. But now all of the dried up reddish looking things that looked kind of dead before are now starting to poke out from the stalks. Maybe those are buds? Maybe they will become flowers! I can't wait to find out!

Also a newbie, but my hydrangeas are 4 and 2 years old and all doing well. I have several varieties, including a new one I planted in the fall with lime green flowers - rated highly in some magazine with hydrangeas all over the cover. I spent some good money on that one so I hope it makes it. My plants have all bloomed some except the varigated one, though it has beautiful leaves each year. I also did nothing except ridding the plant of the clearly dead stalks. Now with vigourous leaf growth from bottom and now on stalks as well, should I do any pruning now. Do I just wait until end of summer? Also, I have some volunteers near the main bushes. Can I dig them up and put them elsewhere? thanks for the advice