My hydrangea hell

[NewspaperTaxis]

Last year I bought and planted a hydrangea - it wasn't huge but it had the big blue flowers and I planted it with the hydrangea food you're supposed to, dug a bit hole for it with compost and so on.
Over the winter it sort of wilted and seemed to die. Then some green shoots appeared, so I pruned the dead twigs around it.
Now, this is all very well but I was sort of hoping for a big bushy hydrangea of the sort you see in many a front garden. I don't know how long it takes to get to that point but currently what I have - and I bought another because the first one seemed to fade away quick - is not bushy at all, more a Brazilian!
I suppose I can add those Grow liquid things to make it go faster but did I buy the wrong kind? Did I get mugged off?
Also attached is a feature on a recent local paper about hydrangeas, but even then I'm not sure it's clear how big some of them are. Honestly, I sometimes think gardening should be easier than this!

I inherited my hydrangea when l bought this house. It must be 60 years old by now. It gets a bit of sun in the morning and shade in afternoon.
It has thrived on neglect and that the drainage pipe above it leaks so it gets a lot of water whenever it rains.
All I've ever done to it is wait for a warmish spring day when l chop off the dead heads from the previous year (which have protected it from frost and snow) down to a nice lowish bud. The dead heads fill my garden waste bin.
I am no gardener and the hydrangea is the making of my garden!

I really want a blue mop head hydrangea but they seem really difficult to get hold of here (NE Scotland). Used to holiday on Cape Cod and they are everywhere! This thread is encouraging me to keep looking. Maybe this year.

Anything called patio is going to be small. I think you bought a chihuahua when you wanted a Labrador. But it looks healthy. You may have pruned out this years flowers but never mind. Just throw some seeds around to fill the bed . Cosmos are good. Loved your thread title, really made me laugh. Gardening’s hard and we all start somewhere. I had a tendency to choose things because I liked the name. After 10 years trying to coax 5 sickly white rose bushes into health -Boule de bloody Neige, I now check disease resistance first.

I am disinterring this topic!

Here are pictures of the original non-bushy hydrangeas - they have got larger and look healthy in the last few months, scarcely a flower there however. Was that because I pruned them back? I don't see what else I could have done.

So I bought another blue one early summer form Chessington Garden Centre and at first it looked the part. While it hasn't actually died, it doesn't have nice blue flowers anymore and it really hasn't grown, even though I water it, while the other ones look a different picture altogether. I could see them being replanted somewhere more appropriate. They're in the same stretch of border, in shade in the morning, full sun in afternoon when there is any, so it's the same context, same soil etc.

I put a watering can alongside to give a sense of scale.

This chimes with another post I could make - some plants just don't seem to grow! I have a lilac bought at the same time as the others - white, limoneum or something - it's not actually dying but it doesn't look too healthy, it reminds me of those dinky bonsai-style evergreen trees they sell that grow about 5cm a year if that. There's no visible progress, while a Rufus stag horn or some such thing I bought, it won't be a tree this year but you can actually see it making an effort to get going!

Reading with interest - I have a south facing garden, does this mean I cannot plant a hydrangea at all? I might try and get them for the front garden then instead

I chopped all my flower heads off in winter. It’s blooming beautifully this year.

Was that because I pruned them back? I don't see what else I could have done.

Prune in spring, ideally when there's not likely to be more severe frosts after. Leave any flower heads on, they help protect the plant during the winter. In spring you can see if branches are truly dead or if there are buds forming. I usually trim back to a strong pair, and take out some of the older stems entirely.

This is my hydrangea. As you can see it is huge and actually several plants.

We've tried cutting it right down in autumn, leaving it to just wilt and die, and putting manure on it. We've never had the huge cauliflowers on it that I so dream of 😅

It NEVER flowers more than a couple of measly petals on the edges.

All I've ever done to it is wait for a warmish spring day when l chop off the dead heads from the previous year (which have protected it from frost and snow) down to a nice lowish bud

^^

Maybe I'm doing this too early in the spring. I'm gonna wait till it's warmer

The leaves looks healthy, is it getting enough water? Maybe chuck some feed at it. I have a couple of big similar ones and they flower beautifully.

@coxesorangepippin do you know the variety? It could be a lace-cap hydrangea which does have a compact centre with petals around the edge, and so it's supposed to look like that.

I'd guess it's some sort of lace cap but they should have more florets round the middle than that.

I've got 2 mophead and 1 lacecap in a really sunny position at the front of my house - they get sun most of the time (when it's sunny!) They suffered last year, especially because I was away on the hottest few days so unable to water them, but 2 out of the 3 are doing well this year.The third had to be cut right back because of the damage done by the sizzling drought last year and it's now quite a lot smaller than the other 2 but it has had a few flowers this year and the foliage looks healthy. I think it should be fine next year.

I try to remember to water them regularly but I'm not as assiduous about that as I could be.

I also bought 2 paniculata last year as I wanted a smaller variety to put elsewhere in the garden. One has looked lovely this year, the other died - so sometimes it is the luck of the draw, I think.

Pruning - I don't prune them until around end of March, when I dead head and cut out any unwanted branches.

I actually dug up one of the big ones and moved it to its current bed nearly 30 years ago and it's done fine there in the sun ever since.

ps Where on earth are the hydrangeas in the first picture! They don't even look like hydrangea to me, more like euonymus!

They are the same hydrangea that I put in my last post - you can see they're in the exact same position!

aha, thankyou, somehow I managed to miss the 2nd pic! My apologies!

Too much nitrogen? (encourages greenery). Likely if you put compost on, or if you overdo the Miracle Grow (or similar).

Chuck some potash on the soil, you'll need to do it now for next year, and that might make a difference to flower production.

I really think it does have a lot to do with where it is planted and when it gets sun. I have 4 x French Hydrangeas so big flower heads, i have moved them all about over the years as my garden has taken shape and all were bought over last 3 years so oldest its probably only 3 and they take up to 10 to get to full size.

Plants doing the best do get morning sun and shade in afternoon, as they are planted in a bed next to an apple tree, one over in a bed bordering my fence on south side of the garden looked god awful last summer - kept wilting in strong sun (afternoon sun) but my Yoshino cherry tree next to it had a hell of a growth spirt so Hydrangea now shaded and perfectly happy 😊

Couple mine used to be a lovely blue but i think turned pinky/purple because of my acidic soil. I tend to use westland liquid feed during flowering season every week or two weeks, and i did use the slow release granules in soil this year too.

In spring after worst frosts i tend to trim back branches to healthy leaf buds, but if you then have another cold spell the first leaves can often die back but they soon recover.

Yes it's probably because of the pruning they are not flowering this year. They do tend to look a bit dead in late winter/early spring. Cut off the dead flower heads off your flowering one next spring but otherwise just leave them to wake up. They are only babies, so need their roots to grow too before they can grow big and bushy on top. Once the root system gets established they will get going quicker.

Hydrangeas prefer morning sun and afternoon shade, however last year's looks happy enough now so seems to be coping fine in its location.

Hydrangea only flower once a year, so the one you bought this year from the garden center is just done flowering. They force them on early so they look nice in the shop, but it means you have missed most the flowering time by the time you get them in the ground. Don't worry about it. It'll likely come good next year.

Couple mine used to be a lovely blue but i think turned pinky/purple because of my acidic soil.
For hydrangeas to be blue, they need to be an appropriate variety, which yours are, and available aluminium ions which requires an acidic soil. Sounds like you need to add aluminium salts.

@ErrolTheDragon Oh, i will get some and give it a go, perhaps by next summer they can turn blue again!

I am not really that much of a fan of pink but having flowers (even pink ones) is better than none! 😂

Thanks mauvish

I think we do have a nitrogen heavy soil actually 🤔 I did a test once so that could be it

NewspaperTaxis, have you really planted a Staghorn Sumach? You may regret it, it's awful for producing suckers.

Hi @LovelyDaaling yes I'm aware of the suckers thing, none yet but if it becomes an issue I'll just get rid of them.

Still don't really 'get' hydrangeas - I mean, if you are meant to hack them back in winter months as @LookingOptimistic says in their last paragraph, how on earth do they grow large again within the space of a few months? The ones I see locally seem quite large, like 10 years old. Surely if you hack these back they have to start from scratch?

It does seem that the ones flourishing get the morning sun and afternoon shade so that is helpful - though I was looking to replace one that was in a shady spot, perhaps not best for beginners.

I don't think you're supposed to prune them? I did with mine in the first year and it had hardly any flowers the following spring.