Hydrangea bloom color fading and no blooms

I think I have a crowding situation here but want others to confirm. I had 1 hydrangea in my garden for 2 years, then planted 3 more this year, along with a whole lot of other stuff. My old guy bloomed beautifully at first but now the blooms are fading from deep pink to very pale, turning yellow - pic 1. I have also been using regular plant and flower fertilizer.

Next I have 2 royal purples and a blue one that I planted out in spring, none of them bloomed. The blue had blooms when I bought it and I left it out in the cold so I'm thinking too late for that one. But the purples I mail ordered, one of them near the old guy has one bloom but it is definitely being crowded out by him pic 2. The other, I don't know, I think its too close to the zinnias - it only gets 3 hrs of sun, maybe thats the problem pic 3 & 4?

Any help appreciated!

picture 2

picture 3

picture 4

For your first one, the blooms naturally fade as time goes on so I don't think you have a problem. For the new ones, I wouldn't necessarily expect they would bloom the first year in the ground. Some plants take that time to get their roots established rather than blooming, and hydrangeas have the additional complicating factor that they bloom on old wood, and you don't know how the nursery treated them before you got them. They may have done some pruning to get them a good size for shipping, and that would have got rid of most of the places that blooms would have been. So I don't think it's your garden conditions (crowding, sun, etc) that are causing the lack of blooms, I think it's to be expected and next year hopefully you'll get more of a show.

That being said, if that's 2 hydrangea plants in your 2nd picture, they are definitely planted too close together and as the new one gets bigger they're going to be totally on top of each other, which can create poor air circulation which can lead to fungal problems. So I'd definitely recommend moving the new one a bit farther away so that they both have time to get to their full-grown width without running into each other. And the two plants you're showing in picture 3 also look way too close together, I think you'll be having the same problem with them if you don't move one of them.

I agree; good advice. Can you check the plants' labels to determine the size at maturity (ie, at 10 years) of these shrubs? Most varieties can get big as in 5-6 feet wide so, if you look at the center stem of the plant, imagine the plant growing 3' on any direction. The little one will definitely be crowded out. Then consider this... I have yet to see a hydrangea that will quit trying to grow just because it reaches 10 years! They may grow more slowly but, if you keep feeding them, they may exceed the so-called size at maturity.

OK, gotcha - they're definitely too close together. Thanks for the advice!

About moving them, lots of posts say not until the fall after blooming - should I do it now since they're not happy? Also, since these are macrophyllas they bloom on old wood right, so i should prune in the fall? How far down from the bloom should I cut? And how do I know when to do it?? I have so many questions!!

Also, the blooms that are fading have only been there 6 weeks maybe, they fade that quick?

They don't look unhappy to me now, and summer is generally the worst time of year to transplant. They'll be unhappy in the future if you don't move them, but at least the 2 in the 3rd picture look perfectly healthy now so I'd leave them and transplant at a more appropriate time of year. The only way I'd transplant them now is if you just planted them in the last couple weeks, in that case they won't have really got their roots established yet so it wouldn't be that much extra stress on them to pull them out and plop them in a different hole and let them get established there.

For pruning, you shouldn't prune in the fall, things that bloom on old wood should be pruned (if you prune them at all) right after they finish blooming, if you do it in the fall that's too late and you'll be cutting off next year's buds. Unless you stick with just pruning the branches that bloomed this year, then you're OK pruning anytime since those branches wouldn't flower next year anyway.

As far as fading, the time it takes to fade will vary depending on the cultivar and the conditions, but 6 wks doesn't sound abnormal to me. Someone else posted maybe a week ago and theirs were fading after less time than that.

ecrane - you're so helpful! ok i will wait until fall to move them. so what does pruning just after they finish blooming mean? as they bloom, cut? or once they start fading? and how far down past the bloom to cut them?

My colors are also fading to pale --- So I was interested in this post. Do you just cut the blooms that have faded or lost their color? Thanks, Su

Newbie--if you're going to prune branches that don't currently have flowers on them, I'd probably do it soon--if you wait too close to fall then you will be cutting off next year's flowers. Honestly though you don't need to prune them every year, yours are small so I probably wouldn't prune them at all for a few years. I only prune my hydrangeas when they're getting too overgrown, then what I do is pick the branches I want to cut and cut them all the way back to the base.

Su--you can cut the flowerheads off when they fade or leave them on, it's really a personal preference. I'd say once you don't like the look of them anymore then get rid of them--some people let them go completely dry and leave them there for winter interest, other people like their shrubs more neat and tidy and probably cut them off once they've faded to a certain point.

I have learned something from ecrane3----I did not know that a hydrangea branch would not bloom 2 years in succession. Is there a reason for this? This was mentioned in your July 13 message.

Shirleyd

In my experience, with hydrangeas that bloom on old wood, they won't bloom where there was a bloom this year. This year's new growth will be where next year's blooms are, and where the bloom is, it's a flower rather than new growth. So you can cut that particular stem back to the next main stem and still have blooms next year on the other branches. Of course if you cut the blooms off early enough in the season that they make new growth there, then you could get buds there the following year. Personally I like to do most of my pruning in the fall which is typically a big no-no for hydrangeas that bloom on old wood, but what I do is only prune the branches that had blooms this year, that way there are plenty of branches left to bloom next year.

To ecrane 3----thanks for all the info. I will give it a try this year.

Have you read Dr. Michael Dirr's book on hydrangeas? Does he say anything about this?

Shirleyd

No, I don't have his book.

Here's a picture to illustrate what I'm talking about--this is a hydrangea that is still small so I haven't pruned it at all yet. If you look in the middle, you'll see some brownish stuff that is the remains of one of last year's blooms. On either side of it, you can see where two new branches grew out from the same main branch--those two new branches grew last year and although you can't see it in this picture, they both have blooms on the ends of them. But you can see that where last year's bloom was there's nothing going on, so I could have pruned that part back to the main branch and not hurt this year's blooms. Since the plant is so small and that little branch that the flower was on wasn't very big, it would have kind of been a waste of time to prune it, but on a larger plant where the stem was longer it might have been helpful to prune it out. I wish I had the big hydrangea from my old house to show you, it was a lot bigger and it would be easier to see on it than on this tiny one.