Hydrangeas—Where are my flowers? 

Summer and hydrangeas go together like peanut butter and jelly.  It is hard to imagine a summer garden without a robust hydrangea growing in a lightly shaded spot with its large ball flowers smothering the foliage.  Only this year, after the very hard winter, those flowers might be conspicuously absent. 

You see, as a general rule hydrangeas bloom on last year’s wood and when that wood is lost either to improper and overzealous pruning or severe freezing then there simply won’t be any flowers.  This is probably the most common complaint about hydrangeas in the northwest.  Add to freezing temperatures and bad pruning too much shade or fertilizer and you have the key reasons hydrangeas won’t bloom.  The solution is to plant them in only afternoon shade, keep the fertilizer to a minimum and leave the pruning shears in the garden shed.

I have several hydrangeas in my garden and the ones that fared the worst were two that I had recently planted and were still actively growing come last fall.  Both of them died completely to the ground and although they look fabulous now neither is going to bloom this year.  On the other extreme is a variety called Blue Bird that was well established in another bed and hadn’t been pruned for several years.  It is currently drop-dead gorgeous with electric blue lacecap flowers enshrouding its entire crown.  Hydrangeas do seem to thrive on neglect provided you give them enough water.

While the vast majority of “macrophylla” type hydrangeas bloom on last year’s growth there has been much progress made in finding varieties that will bloom on current season’s wood.  Endless Summer was the first to arrive on the scene with a hefty marketing budget to go along with it.  It’s a fine plant but in the nursery where growers have to keep shearing them you still won’t see many blooms.  In the garden it does just fine.

In the same family as Endless Summer is Blushing Bride which is a white blushing to pink variety and the newest kid on the block this year is a lace cap flavor called Twist and Shout.  These are all varieties that should bloom every year, regardless of how cold the winter is or how poorly they are pruned.  In an ideal winter where there is little freeze damage they will bloom even better.

There are several companies now getting into the act with repeat blooming plants.  Forever and Ever is probably the other big name which claims to have 7 variations in colors.  Penny Mac is another but lesser know variety too.

Of all the new (and old) varieties on the market, two have become my favorites.  I have to confess these are not repeat bloomers but they are normally very reliable bloomers.  Lady in Red is simply a very attractive shrub with bright green leaves and red petioles and stems.  The flowers are not much to write home about but the fall color is fantastic. 

The other variety is called Cityline and there are four types available: Venice: Long lasting deep blue/fuchsia colored blooms Berlin: Large, long lasting clear pink flowers. Paris: Smaller plant with large intense red blooms Vienna: Smallest of the four, dark pink flowers emerging with cream throat.  What I like about these plants is that they are all dwarfs only growing 2-3 feet tall, they have strong stems to support their flowers and they are wonderful in the garden and containers.  If space is an issue then Cityline is the answer. 

While we (and other nurseries too) have a very good supply of hydrangeas now you will probably notice there isn’t a lot of color.  Chalk it up to the winter we just had that was hard on growers as well as gardeners.  Read the labels and choose wisely.  There are lots of choices out there.  Buy and plant them now and you should have tons of flowers this time next year.