Q&A on gardening.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Nancy Brachey

Q: Each winter I never know what to do with the bare stalks of our hydrangea bushes. I usually end up cutting them down because they look ugly. Then I hear that if I do this, they will not bloom the next year. Neither of the two we have bloom very much, so what should I do?

A: I spent some time Sunday afternoon cutting off the spent blooms and stems of my best hydrangea. It is a tedious task, and I soon got bored with it, preferring to wander over to admire the developing buds of a Camellia sasanqua, which is right on schedule for a rosy-pink show this winter.

There is a difference in deadheading the typical mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) now and pruning the shrub, which is best done as the flowers faded in midsummer.

Nipping off the spent blooms means cutting the flower head and its little stem back to the main stem. That is where next year's bloom will emerge. People who are fed up with the way a hydrangea looks by autumn often go overboard and cut the entire shrub _ including the stems where buds will emerge _ killing prospects for more flowers.

Deadheading these spent blooms will make the shrub look better through the fall. But hydrangea foliage declines badly in winter and a certain raggedness takes hold. That's why I suggest planting them in a secondary rather than a primary location, such as beside the front door.

But even in a secondary location, such as against the back of my house, the hydrangea benefits from tidying up in fall. Then, it looks quite good in autumn, garden, not like a leftover of summer.