August Update on Annabelle Hydrangeas - 2018

Two months ago, I posted a photo of some of our front hydrangeas and they were looking pretty small.  Today?  The Annabelle's are big and blooming.  Those two that you see above are Annabelle's and they're on the south side of our porch.  These continue to outpace in both size and blooms the Vanilla Strawberry variety that we have in front of the porch that face due East.

In looking at some of our neighbors, our hydrangeas are behind where some others are at currently in terms of blooms.  Might be because ours aren't as mature as the ones next door or maybe they're some other variety. 

I didn't cut these all the way back to the ground, but according to this product listing on White Flower Farm, that's what many people choose to do:

Because she flowers heavily on the current season’s growth (“new wood”), most gardeners cut the stems to the ground in late winter. New shoots emerge from the base and bloom the same summer.

I know that's what the listing says, but I'm so scared to be wrong.  It is tough to me as a gardener to actually compel myself to do a full cut-back.  For fear that I was wrong and they don't actually grow from the ground up.   But, you know what Audrey Hepburn says about gardening, right?