Prune annabelle hydrangeas bow?

[Katisha]

Ive kept the heads on my annabelles over winter but on venturing down the garden this morning I can see leaf buds forming.
Should i cut them down now and if so how far?

Sorry title should say now not bow

You'll get a variety of responses.

Leaving the heads on for a while may protect the new buds from a hard frost. But even if they do get frosted Annabelle is tough and will probably bounce back.

Cut them back to the buds and you should get more but smaller flowers this year.

Cut them back hard and you should get fewer but bigger flowers.

My Annabelle has read none of these instructions - she has seriously outgrown her space every year whatever my strategy. This year she's getting a hard cut back and being moved to somewhere her desire for world domination can be better accommodated.

The buds on H. Annabelle are small, unlike the big juicy buds on the H. macrophylla ( mop head ) cultivars. I think the advice to leave the flower heads for frost protection applies to the mop heads more than Annabelle. It's about now that they start falling off anyway and blow around the garden like tumbleweed! So I'd prune them now.

When I had Annabelle the heads used to droop so I ended up pruning lightly so as to leave old hard stems- these were more able to support the heads than the new green growth after a hard pruning.

@olderbutwiser
I heard the same on GQT.