Hibiscus and hydrangae didn't flower this year

[VisionOfYou]

Any ideas why or what I could do differently for next year? They've both been no trouble for over 10 years now putting on a beautiful displays every year, but I've had no blooms at all from either this year.

We had some testing conditions last year with droughts and so on, which has probably inhibited their growth. I would mulch well, and see what they do next year. Do they otherwise look like healthy plants?

They've both grown really well and I'd say I've had about a foot of height on my hydrangea this year, which I was tempted to take off as it's becoming too tall for my space but didn't incase it impacted on next year's flowers.

I've got a border full of hydrangea, planted a couple of years ago. Whilst they all flowered this year the flowers are much smaller than last year. Quite puny. I'm putting it down to drought early in the year and hoping for improvement next.

I think the really hot dry late spring/early summer did the damage. My hibiscus is currently flowing a little thanks to the wet summer, but most of my shrubs are pretty poor. My earlier flowering shrubs are flowerless.

My Hydrangeas (and my neighbours) have not had many flowers and the flowers that are there have been very small. They have all put out lots of new green growth though. I am hoping that they all do extra well next year.

Autumn care for hydrangea - loosen the soil and plenty of mulch around the roots.

Selectively prune out all dead wood. If there were no flowers on any branches use the opportunity to reshape the whole plant so its a nice ball shape but reduced height. I normally leave a few flower heads on as frost protection through until Feb then I prune back to healthy bud to give it a head start.

They enjoy ericaceous feed but mine just get the leaf mulch as they're well established.

I've got 3 and they've all flowered prolifically even in the drought of 2021 when it didn't rain for 5 months .

This is my lace-cap - it seems to have enjoyed the cold wet summer for some strange reason. Hopefully the autumn care tips I've given will give your plant a boost for next year.

@daisychain01 Many thanks for the tips.

This is really helpful, thank you. My plant is around 5ft high at the moment and has no flowers at all this year- if I reduced it by about half would that be too much?

I have six hydrangeas in a row. All bought at the same time. All in the same place. All in the same soil. All get the same amount of morning sun. All the same type.

Three flowered and three didn’t. The ones that flowered are not even next to each other either. Baffling and gutting.

@VisionOfYou 2.5 ft should be fine. Keep an eye on its growth, if there are some nice plump buds, which occur all over the branches, try to cut so that you don't take all those nodes off. I do my pruning branch by branch. It takes longer than setting to with a hedge cutter, but I find it gives me a better, stronger plant. I step back as I'm pruning to make sure the overall shape is nice and balanced.

I can take a few photos and put them up on here

@Bananas1350 are your non-flowerers generally healthy looking? I've had a few years when they're more sparse than others, it is sometimes weather dependent, but it's strange that a few of them didn't flower at all.

No problem at all! @SorrowsPrayers

My hydrangeas have done well but the hibiscus have hardly grown at all and are not flowering- they've been in the ground for about 3 years and haven't taken off

My hydrangeas have never had so many flowers before. I watered them a bit when we had the dry spell in June and then they just took off when the rain started. I had a bit of a problem with them falling over in heavy rain, I have a few Pretty Annabel and Vanilla Fraise and they are quite big heads that hold the rain. My rose bush was also full of flowers, mostly over now.

@daisychain01 yup. All look good. Lots of lovely green leaves. They look really healthy.