Success With Hydrangeas Blog

It’s time to report on 2020 winter impact on my hydrangeas, a little later than I would have liked. I test both new and old introductions to the big leaf (macrophylla) and mountain (serrata) hydrangea families. Invariably, some plants produce few or no flowers. Then I examine why that happened. You can read previous reports…

You should be having a fabulous hydrangea year. The relatively mild winter and forgiving spring is giving gardeners in the Northeast a fantastic show. Just about every big leaf hydrangea (macrophylla) is flowering. If your plants aren’t performing, take a minute to read a post I just did  for the National Garden Bureau. In July it’s…

Are the leaves on your ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea arborescens stuck to each other? Inspect them and any other hydrangea arborescens you may have like Incrediball® or Invincibelle® Spirit. You may notice some leaves cupped together. It looks like the leaves above from my Invincibelle® Spirit. Interesting, huh? Don’t panic!

  Gift hydrangeas have been floating around for over 6 weeks. Between Easter just past and Mother’s Day in just a few days, it was inevitable that these traditional gift plants (also called florist hydrangeas) would show up. You can’t avoid them in local garden centers, grocery stores, and box stores.   Blooming florist hydrangeas are…

If your hydrangeas live in the milder parts of the U.S. and Europe, and the spirit moves you, you can consider pruning only your new wood blooming hydrangeas now. It’s hard to conceive of that when you live where I do. Last March we had 3 Nor’easters. Not only did they bury everything, but the…

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to learn about the language of hydrangea flowers. We’re talking here about the most popular hydrangea: mophead, hortensia, pompom or big leaf. Botanically, it’s hydrangea macrophylla. Although we know this plant originated in Asia, we also know from fossil discoveries that it existed 40-65 million years ago in North…

Hydrangeas as cut flowers are perfect if you are feeling hydrangea-starved. That describes me a week or two ago. Then we had two consecutive days of temps in the 60s. That gave me a terminal case of spring fever! But I knew enough not to rush out and start playing with my hydrangeas. Living in…

This is the time of year to be alert to deer damage on hydrangeas. The winter weather pattern of deep cold, snow, and ice storms has made it increasingly difficult for them to get around and find food sources to sustain life. Deer tracks are the obvious tip off so here’s what to look for.

We have had a few nights where the temps have dropped into the high 30s, a sobering reminder that it’s time for preparing hydrangeas for winter. Specifically, time to wrap some of my bigleaf (macrophyllas) and mountain (serratas) hydrangeas. Those that aren’t planted in protected locations as I described in my other blog posts, HERE and…

On my recent garden visits, I’ve noted an abundance of unsightly foliage and hydrangea leaf spots. They can be bacterial leaf spot from an infection by Xanthomonas campestris, or Cercospora which grows from the pathogen Cercospora hydrangeae. I’m also seeing powdery mildew on many plants. You can thank Erysiphe friesii var. friesii (formerly Microsphaera friesii).…