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» whiteme - hydrangea

Hi Marge, followed you into the shade looking for my coffee. I can't tell you how many coffee cups I have strewn around my yard LOL.
I live in CT, My hydrangea's never flowered last year. After talking with a few people there's never came up last year either. Would it be that it was too warm and humid last year? They bushed up nice and were nice and green, but that is where it ended. Any suggestions?

Sandy in CT

-- posted by whiteme

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» Marge_Talt - Re: hydrangea

In response to message posted by whiteme:

Hi Sandy, Welcome to Gardening in Shade! Know all about the coffee cups lost in the garden:-)

Well, I would bet that the flower buds on your hydrangeas are getting killed, either by winter low temps or a late frost.

Happens to me in Z7 more years than I wish it did. The problem with Hydrangea macrophylla cultivars is that they bloom on old wood - at least some old wood has to survive the winter. They set flower buds in summer that have to survive winter to bloom. Of course, if the old stems get pruned back hard in early spring, that will put paid to the flowers, too.

This hydrangea (the mop head or big leaf type) also has a tendency to start to wake up at the very first sign of spring warmth...always too soon because there is always a cold snap after those first warm days.

There are a couple of cultivars that are now on the market that either bloom on both old and new wood or set flower buds all down the stem so that some are likely to survive.

Keep your eye out for 'Bailmer' AKA 'Endless Summer'or 'Penny Mac' - there are (according to Dirr) more clones exhibiting these traits being trialed that should be availble soon.

In the meantime, you can try protecting your plant by building a burlap cage around it and stuffing that with dry leaves once the plant has dropped all its leaves and freezing temps. have arrived. Just pound some wood stakes in around the plant, a few inches away from the outer branches and stapel burlap to the stakes. Stakes should be a bit taller than your plant.

Once weather has settled in spring, remove the leaves - you may want to poke around once things thaw out a bit to see if new growth has started and is getting too pale from lack of light. If so, remove leaves but leave the burlap there until you're sure you're not going to get any more freezes.

-- posted by Marge_Talt

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