Over the winter and spring the hydrangeas were ALL grey sticks. Since the weather got warm leaves have started growing and it's looking well. But I wonder if I am supposed to cut off the grey sticks? Should I have done it last fall? My father-in-law says I should just leave them but it looks awful.
Advice appreciated!
Thanks,
Cindi
This has been an unusual cold winter with wide temperature swings. That has affected hydrangeas all over the eastern part of the US. This has caused a lot of winter kill on older stems of hydrangeas. Don't despair - they will recover but may not bloom this year.
Edited to add the old branches won't recover, I meant that the plant will recover. Sorry for the confusion...
This message was edited Jun 1, 2014 3:46 PM
If the gray branches are well and truly dead you can definitely cut them off. They look dead to me, but you can scratch the top layer of the branch off with your fingernail - if you see green underneath, then they are alive.
My mop heads all looked the same. I cut all the sticks back to the ground. I wonder if I should have not cut back so far. Some sticks appeared to not be as dry and probably weren't dead. Surprisingly I notice some buds now on the new growth. I thought mop heads bloomed on old growth.
They can. I had some stems that finally leafed out -and bloomed- as well as others that did not and were cut to the ground. Mme. Emile Moulliere is a non-rebloomer; but it is also a very sturdy hydrangea that will bloom many times when you think it should not so, this year, I am enjoying those blooms. They are not as mine as in prior years but still, after such a bad winter, this is great!
Some varieties were developed to rebloom, like the Endless Summer, the Let's Dance and the Together And Ever Series. But there are others which sort of, kind of do to various degrees. David Ramsey, Dooley, Penny Mac, Little Penny and Oak Hill come to mind. Then there are others that bloom late in the Fall if the conditions are just right. I have some unnamed mopheads that do this every blue moon and am hoping they will do that again this year.
I cut mine back and got new growth with tiny buds that aren't opening and a few tiny flowers. What are these? Were these caused by the extremely cold winter?
Could be.
Flower buds in macrophyllas are invisible until they open and go thru the broccoli phase. If you can see "buds" then those are probably leaf buds instead. Winter protection, no pruning on July -or later- and a stable supply of moisture (no periods of dry followed by periods of wet) from the time the flower buds develop will help (you can stop watering when the ground freezes but restart in the Spring)..
