When I bought my house 3 years ago, I inherited a hydrangea from the prior owners. I had no idea at the time what it even was until it bloomed. Then, I had no idea how to prune. I did some research and realized I had a mop-head of some sort and that it bloomed on old wood. So, I didn't prune it at all because I was afraid to ruin anything (by this time, it was fall). The follow summer I had great blooms. So, I again did no pruning.
The next summer, I had a bunch of sticks sticking out of the ground in the Spring. I figured that was OK...that is was "old wood".....and I had lots of new growth at the base. Eventually, the plant got nice and big, but no blooms at all. My guess was that late frosts in Ohio last year killed the buds.
I again didn't prune at all last year and this Spring I have the same bunch of sticks and lots of growth at the base. I do have some green appearing on one of the "sticks". And, this Spring there were no late frosts. I had high hopes that these sticks would start doing something!
So, when do I know if it's really "old wood" versus DEAD wood! LOL! It looks so silly with all those brown sticks just sticking up in the air doing nothing. I must be doing something wrong, but I'm not sure how to correct myself.
Thanks,
Jane
Confused about dead wood and pruning
By now if the branches aren't leafing out then they're probably dead, I would go ahead and trim them off. In your zone you really need to pile leaves or something over them for the winter, otherwise some years you'll get some blooms and in others you won't because buds will freeze off, branches will die back, etc. As for this year--unless I'm mistaken you did have a late freeze this year, I remember lots of posts a few months ago about a spring cold snap that caused a lot of trouble for people all over the eastern part of the country and I don't see how it could have missed you! If you don't want to go to all the trouble of protecting them for the winter, you should try Forever and Ever, Endless Summer, or one of the other cultivars that blooms on new as well as old wood.
Thanks for the advice...I think you are right and I am going to go ahead and trim off the dead.
I live in NE Ohio and while we had some frost advisories in April/May, I didn't have any problems. While I didn't get any frost, maybe it just got too cold. I don't see people protecting their hydrangeas much around here, and yet I see flowers on most people's plants. It's driving me crazy. I did get two of the Endless Summer's this year, so we'll see how they do.
Maybe I'll try to really mulch over them this winter to see if that helps protect them. Trouble is.....the one is so big I don't know how in the world I could protect the whole thing.
Thanks again,
Jane
I think what most people do if they have big ones is you can build a wire cage around it, then pile in all your fall leaves. I guess if it's 10 feet tall or something that may still not really be a good option though! And cold weather can do the buds in even if there's not actually frost on the plant, there were so many reports of damage to plants in the eastern part of the country during that cold spell that I think it's definitely possible that it got too cold for your buds.
As far as everyone else's hydrangeas that have flowers--do you know what kind they have? It could be they have cultivars like Endless Summer, or a couple of the other Hydrangea species (H. paniculata and H. arborescens) also pretty popular and they also bloom on new wood and would do fine in your zone.
I'd say, to be very brief and in answer to your question, old wood is the brown ugly sticks and new growth is the green growth with buds. No buds = no blooms so feel free to cut those sticks out as low to the base as possible.
I just read that lace caps do better than mopheads for overwintering in colder zones but I have no experience with living in anything but zone 7.