Hydrangea hang up

Ok. so its been in my front garden for a number of years and usually gives us a real good show of blooms..
This year as you can see from the picture there are two flowers!
Other Hydrangeas across the road are putting on a spendid show.
It was pruned at the recommended time.
I never feed it..
Any ideas why this is happening?
Capney

 

Capney, how hard back did you prune it?

 

Just the dead wood with large years dead blossoms, March time if I remember correctly.

 

My advice would be, to prune in the Autumn rather than Spring. You are less likely to cut off the immature flower buds, then. And trust me, when I say, leaving the old flowers on to protect the young buds, is an old wive`s tale.

 

Well, I prefer to prune in spring, but only when you can safely distinguish flowering buds from leaf buds.

The first are round and fat, the second are thin and pointy, and lower on the branches.

I would suggest that spring frost may have damaged the buds (it certainly damaged those of my plants) may be the ones on the other side of the street are better exposed/sheltered? sometimes a wall cutting out the wind is all that is required to make a difference with plants that are so much "almost hardy" but not quite.

I agree with Dave about the dead flowers. The only thing they do is to become heavy with snow and bend down the branches, plus of course looking like "brown socks" in the garden all through winter. I cut those in early autumn ( the best I dry for dry flower arrangements, the rest goes to the compost or mulch), and do the real pruning in spring.

 

Thanks guys. good advise as usual.
Tis true my front is directly facing North and it goes without saying across the road is directly South.
Across the road was pruned about the same time.
And I am reliably informed by her indoors that I usually cut it back in the Autumn. The grey matter is failing....
Looks like I may have upset the usual plant routine.
OK, so heres an idea...
Maybe South facing needs Autumn pruning..
Maybe North facing are better with Spring pruning..
Capney
Daaahhhh
Capney

 

I neglected mine too last year didn't prune until spring and left dead heads on......worst showing I have had this year. Will certainly make the effort this coming autumn!

 

I have one flower on all three of mine and was going to ask the same question on here as very disapointed - should I prune in Autumn then?

 

As I said I would prune in spring. SOme people say otherwise, but I stick to my opinion. Remove the flowerheads in autumn and prune in spring when the buds are developed but BEFORE they break to leaf. Then you can see what you are doing, selecting which and how many flowering buds to leave.

 

I must have cut off all the flowering buds this spring then........ Pruning in autumn would hopefully mean no chance of that but would I put the plant under stress?

Capney - you say you never feed it - why's that? I have been feeding mine - is that bad?

 

Who said that you cannot prune off the flowering buds in autumn? These are formed during summer, and bloom the following year. If you prune from, say, september onward you can very well prune all the growth that would bloom next year, and the plant will not have time to make and mature new growth before frost. The good thing about pruning in march is that you can tell buds apart.

Something else Iwantto add to the "My neighbours' are blooming" discussion, is that some hydrangeas are able to bloom on current year growth, also many macrophyllas, despite the common belief than only "Endless Summer" has this ability. If your neighbours hyds are blooming and yours are not, and all pruning and conditions are similar, this may be a factor too. I have two bushes side by side now that were in the same place, planted, pruned, and fed at the same time, one "Mme Emile Mouliere" is blooming decently, despite having lost all her buds to spring frost, the other "Soeur Therese" hasn't got a single flower. That's just genes. They look similar, two white mopheads, but one is remontant and one is not.

 

I am feeding my hydrangea and after following Ivory`s advice and giving it a good heathy dose of iron chelate-sequestrine it has just bloomed on me. In just a couple of weeks it has gone from

this--




to this--



There is a very slight difference in time of day when the photos were taken, but only a couple of hours. The first pic is taken from a different perspective, but the change I am trying to show is the overall health and colouration of the plant.


The change is even more dramatic when you see it in person.

 

Then don´t prune them, they will do just as fine. Just cut off the dead flowers Claire, your White wave looks good!!!

 

Sounds good ivory