Bugs? Disease?

My otherwise always healthy hydrangea has developed some ailment in the last week or so. Here is a picture of what it is doing. Shriveling up from the edges of the leave down, and the new little buds are just crispy critters. This is the regular Grandma-variety hydrangea - big shrub with poofy blue balls. I've had it for years with no similar problems. I live in Zone 8 Pacific NW Washington, so lack of water is likely not an issue, although we have had a drier than normal spring.

My first line of defense will be to water it thoroughly and then spray the entire plant with Safer's insectide soap. Any other thoughts or suggestions? I don't use poison.

Thanks so much for any ideas.

And here's a shot of the whole shrub so you can see the pattern of disaster.

I would say that is frost damage. My looks like that in spots. It will snap back. You can remove the damaged leaves then the plant will look better.

BH - I have the same on one of my Nikko Blues that is exposed - definitely frost damage on the young growth.
I cut much of it back to healthy sets of leaves.

Thanks - I forgot about that cold snap we had and was thinking I was getting inundated with some sort of bug or disease. I'll trim it back and see what thappens. Also found the same problem with other plants.

Yep. Frost. I wouldn't trim it back. You might lose the blooms for this year. I'd just leave it and see what happens. If you do decide to trim, just do the worst branches.

I definitely agree. I was looking at my "no fuss" Nikko blues today and saw damage to the leaves, too. In fact, it looks much like yours. I'm not going to cut back - my experience with Nikko Blue has been that it will recover and put out new leaves in most cases, so I'll see how it does in this one.

Edited to add that I will probaby end up taking off as much of the dead leaves as I can. I hate the look of them . . .

This message was edited Apr 19, 2010 11:49 AM

Yes, it should recover, Kathy. When my hydrangeas have been damaged by frost, I've been known to go over them with scissors, cutting off the frost damaged parts of the leaf because it ruins the look. Might give it a little extra shot of fertilizer this year.

Interesting that this is the first time I've seen this type of damage in seven years of being here . . .

Same here, Katie.

I might do the scissor trick myself, this shrub is right next to my front porch and it currently looks totally bedraggled. Sounds like a good project for my evening glass of wine - snip, sip, snip, sip.

bonehead, had to laugh at that one. I can just see my wife doing that except it would be
snip, sip, sip, sip, sip.......

Doug

You could also just break off the leaf.

I think I will go with the sip, snip, sip, sip, sip, oh what the heck, chug, break off the dang leaf, and back to sip, sip, sip, sleep.

It's a good task while you're on the phone. Get a headset and go to it. That's how I deadhead the rhodies in the back yard. Pour a glass of wine, call someone, and then get started. :-)

I thought that our early cold snap was perhaps easier on the plants because there was no rain associated with it. But I think that maybe Rick Lupp at Mt. Tahoma nursery was right: It came too early and the plants hadn't been hardened off yet. That's the only thing I think that can account for the Hydrangeas' response.

I bought 2 new Hydrangeas at Watson's yesterday. A lot of their hydrangeas had frost damage, as well. My 'Vanilla Strawberry' had just arrived, and was still in the holding area. There was a huge difference in how it looked versus 'Let's Dance Moonlight' that had been there a while. VS will probably be more tender for awhile, though, while it is getting acclimated.

I don't think it was a winter freeze that affected the hydrangeas. It was the late one we had after it had been so warm and everything began to grow early.

Okay . . . but the leaves affected on my hydrangea aren't new leaves . . .

Didn't your hydrangeas lose their leaves over the winter? I thought these were leaves that were new this year. I've had this happen a number of times over the last 20 years when things begin to leaf out, even if they are not actually 'in leaf' yet, and we get a frost. It's always on the leaves for the current season. I am surprised you haven't had this happen before, Kathy, since you are probably in a colder microclimate than me. On the other hand most of my hydrangeas are in considerable shade, so they grow in a cold area of my yard.

These two are up next to the house on the north side. Prevailing winds and the associated precipitation come from the south side. I also have a small forest on the north and northeast of the house, which provides protection for these hydrangeas. Typically they lose most leaves, but not all.

My other hydrangea leaves go away completely.

Of course, now I'll be watching that much more closely. Maybe my earlier statement was incorrect and Patricia was right. I don't know.

I always go out and remove the old leaves usually when I remove the rose leaves. I get tired to picking them up.

And your garden shows it!! I don't usually get all the blossom heads off before the rains hit. Some day . . .

It's funny to see a Hydrangea thread taken over by PNW people!!! Wish I could come visit all of you. I love it there.

Doug

Hi postmandug. We have a lot of hydrangeas out here and not to many problems with them.
Where is Bardstown? Sounds like it might be in the beautiful northern part?

You can come visit anytime!!

Oh, are we on the hydrangea forum? LOL! It felt like 'home' to me!
All of my H. serrata varieties are well budded out already.

I think we take "home" to wherever we happen to land...

Yes, Doug - please visit. Most likely we'd create an event complete with nursery trips & plant swapping!
We are very celebratory here...

We love celebrating visitors. Especially with nursery trips and plant swapping! Come on up!

Willowwind, yes we are about 30 miles south of Louisville and the Ohio River. Bourbon Capital of the World! The nursery trips and plant swapping sounds great until I think about the logistics of getting them home...

Doug

I wanted to warn hydrangea-growers------even though the books say that it rarely happens, spider mites will attack hydrangeas. Any time you have a long dry spell-----and the weather is rather warm------beware! One dry spring when I was having a showing of my 110 hydrangeas, many were devastated by the nasty little creatures. But, not liking to use chemicals, I have found the best treatment is to spray daily up UNDER the leaves.

Just a word of warning,
Shirleyd

Yes thanks. I have that problem with hardy fuchsias also.