I bought a house 3 years ago and have had very little luck getting existing hydrangeas to bloom. I believe they are Endless summer, snowball nikko, and Teller blue lacecap (all macrophylla) plus two unidentified in the attached picture. Plants look great (see attached pic) - advice? All in full or half day sun.. I know not to prune macrophyllas.. Do they need fertilizer?
First of all this past winter kind of did almost all big leaf hydrangeas in for blooms. Second of all in your zone you would probably have to winter protect your big leaf hydrangeas (the blooms are formed on old wood for the most part and late frosts usually kill the blooms).
Strange, Lauranh. I would have expected that the old wood flower buds from ES be goners but, I would also expect ES to rebloom from new wood in mid-to-late July (ie, once more before the end of the growing season perhaps?). I am assuming that your ES really is ES, of course.
Hopefully, the shrubs are not being fed too much fertilizer. A lot of nitrogen can make them stay green at the expense of blooms. Be careful when fertilizing the grass so the grass fertilizer does not end on the hydrangeas. A cup or a cup and a half of organic compost or cottonseed meal per year should be enough. Also, maintain the soil as evenly moist as you can without large periods of dry that might kill the flower buds.
