I would suggest you seek medical advice re your scratched arm. If you have cut all the stems from your hydrangea you will not get flowers next year. Try some of th cuttings in a free draining compost and place in a cold frame over winter....they may root, given time...

Poison ivy also usually leaves a diffuse rash over a wide area, not a single scratch. You may be having an allergic reaction to whatever scratched you, but more likely it has become infected. I would seek medical advice, as Alice says.

Amblealice: I've been cutting back my 40 year-old Annabelle down to about 12 inches the last 10 years to try to keep it in control and it gives me big white flowers every year. But I still don't know how to get rid of the cuttings. I usually burn but concerned if it contains poison ivy. But thanks anyway for the reply.

Thanks to Tugbrethil also.

How odd - this one's H. arborescens, if its Annabelle, and the recommended pruning is light, in Spring. Shame you can't leave the seedheads in place, they're said to look wonderful when frosted... Tugbrethil, how come this one flowers every year regardless of being cut down at the wrong time? Something to do with climate?

I had to research it, Bamboo, but apparently 'Annabelle' is unique among Hydrangeas in blooming on new growth, instead of buds formed the previous summer. It surprised me--until today I had never heard of one that did this! Here's where I found the info:

http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/annabelle.html

Learn something new every day!

Well, fascinating - that's not something mentioned in either of my encyclopaedias regarding Annabelle. Certainly worth planting, what a bonus - cut it back hard and it still blooms next Spring, sounds like a result to me.. perhaps we should spread the news Tugbrethil, certainly this side of the pond. Thanks for the link. What's still unclear to me is whether all the ones in the arborescens group will respond similarly?

From what I can tell, most of the cultivars of that species from 'Grandiflora' and later bloom on new wood, but the wild species doesn't. It's hard to find definitive info on the wild form, though.