Northeast Gardening: Hydrangeas - Which ones are hardy here ?, 1 by Noreaster

Noreaster wrote:
Ugh, I'm about ready to give up on hydrangeas. I have two macrophylla type. The first one I bought, not knowing you had to do the whole winter protection thing to ensure that you got blooms. That one is Merritt's Supreme, which in my acid soil turned the most beautiful shade of deep, dark purple. I haven't seen anything as rich in color as this one, driving around and scoping out others' hydrangeas. The blooms were so pretty, I thought it was worth the effort. Last year I built a big styrofoam box around it, instead of the cage of leaves, which I found to be a major pain come spring.

Last year it rewarded me by doing a weird thing- only the top bud or two broke dormancy and grew and put out flowers (lots of them!). The buds in the middle stayed dormant - not dead, just green, but not growing...they sort of woke up at the very end of summer.

I think I messed up and should have pruned almost everything off to encourage new growth from the base. I was greedy and wanted my flowers last year.

So this past year I did the cage of leaves thing....which was a HUGE pain in the Spring, because that was a LOT of leaves to take out of there. Oh, not only that, a giant branch from a towering pine broke off during the ice storm and landed right on my carefully protected Merritt's Supreme. Great!

Miraculously, most of it survived the branch fall. It's looking better than last year, but I don't see much in the way of flower buds. Some of the buds that never opened last year are sending up growth now. I think it is one very messed up plant. It probably still needs to be cut almost all the way back so that it can just start over.

Here is it's weird self last year, all naked in the middle. I know I need to just give up and grow the hardier types, but the reason I wanted this was for the punch of color...I don't see that with some of those others that are more zone friendly to us.

I also have a Blushing Bride, endless summer type...the jury is still out on that as far as blooms go.



This message was edited Jun 7, 2009 8:46 PM