Hi! New here.

MIL gave us her two potted hydrangeas in the fall of 2010. One is a pink mophead (?) and one is a lace cap (?). No identifying tags. The mophead gets good morning sun and afternoon shade. The lace cap is full shade. We don't get continuous hard frost here.

Spring of 2011 they grew green/big/full/happy. But no blooms. We figure MIL pruned them before she brought them down in her car the previous fall. Overwintered fine. We have not touched it, cut it, or pruned it - admittedly afraid of doing something wrong.

They finally began to produce their own buds, and this spring the mophead exploded, right after Mother's Day. It is gorgeous. Really large blooms - a quick estimate 90-100 on a 4-foot tall, 5-foot wide plant. Because we didn't touch it the "old wood" (I am assuming since the stems are brown/gray) stems are very long and arching, from which each has an average of six "new wood" stems (I am assuming since the stems are green) branching off producing all the flowers. Since Mother's Day, the oldest blooms have kept their pink and are just now starting to fade, but mature and new ones are still vibrant.

I feel very lucky for this serendipity that came from me doing nothing, other than feed and water. Now I would like to understand how to repeat this fantastic performance for next spring/summer, as I doubt I can get as lucky from doing nothing. I don't want to cut anything off until the flowers are gone, but in zone 9 I don't know when it would be too late to deadhead/prune and not get 2013 buds starting in time.

Sorry for the length. Just didn't know what you didn't need to know.