hydrangeas are not blooming or have only 1 flower

Hi, I live near buffalo ny. My enless summer hydrangea and another that i don't know the name of are not blooming at all, or very little. We had a warmer winter with less snow this year. Both plants lost their branches, but grew up with lots of leaves. Both shrubs bloom on new wood as well as old wood. The color of the hydrangea that has just 1 blossom is light blue, it's usually is much deeper blue and turns a pink as it matures. DidI I over fertilize. I gave it some holytone in the spring and again in june. Is there anything I can do to encourage blooms? They booth bloomed beautifully in the past. Anyone have any thoughts on this. thanks, Kathy

Hello, Kathy. I find that the first bloom from ES, which originates from flower buds that the plant created in the prior Fall is usually the biggest and the reblooming cycles create less than that. To produce more bloomage now, you can keep deadheading any spent blooms as this causes the plant to rebloom again. You can also not fertilize as more nitrogen encourages green leaves and less blooms. Weather can also affect bloomage as well... high temperatures, for example, can cause the plants to reduce bloomage. I have noticed less blooms in the Summer than at any other times because our summers are usually 95-105 degrees. Lastly, you can make it easier on the plant to create plant buds by making sure that the soil has enough levels of pottasium and phosphorus, has about 3-4" of organic mulch and the soil is evenly watered (does not thru dry and wet cycles). Dry cycles can cause the plant to abort flower buds and low levels of those minerals may encourage less bloomage. Nurseries sell these cheap kits for testing levels of soil pH, nitrogen, phosphorus and pottasium. You can get one and check if everything is all right.

Hi I am new to this site and have always had reasonably good luck with anything I have planted.
I am about 30 miles south of St. Louis so if you are familiar with the area you know our summers are usually very hot and humid. My question is about a hydrangea I planted about 4 years ago that I purchased at a local nursery. The first year it had beautiful full blooms. The plant gets larger ever year with very healthy foilage but has not bloomed since that first year. It has grown to about 3 feet tall and 4 feet in diameter in 4 years. Could it be something to do with pollination ?

Is it a macrophylla? or something else?

Are you pruning it? If so, when do you prune?

How much do you fertilize and when?

Did it produce flower buds?

Sounds like it could be either an oakleaf hydrangea (leaves are shaped like oak leaves) or a paniculata. I would guess a paniculata. Those are quite winter hardy. They produce flower buds in Spring and the buds open in June-August. Oakleafs produce flower buds in late Summer or early Fall and bloom earlier.

The flower buds are invisible at first but when they open, they look like broccoli. Have you noticed if the buds opened?