My Pinky Winky has turned into a beautiful bush with tons of foliage but nare a sign of one flower. We had a miserable, cold and wet spring and it was the last of my hydrangeas to show any sign of life. If fact thought it was dead and was going to dig it up but decided to give it a few weeks to see if it showed any sign of life. I thought it bloomed on new wood so I am rather disappointed to see not one blossom. Any other Pinky Winky lovers out there with a similar problem?
Barb
no blooms on Pinky Winky
They are later bloomers and if you had a chilly spring it may be even slower than normal. If that's the case, then it may come around and try to bloom at some point, but depending on how slow its start was, maybe it won't quite get to it before cold weather comes again. The other possibility if you just planted it last year is that a lot of shrubs will take a year off from blooming after you plant them so that they can get their roots established, then they'll come back and start blooming. I think it's likely one of those two things, but the other possibilities are that it's in too much shade--they do need some sun to bloom, or if you've been giving it fertilizer that's high in nitrogen that can stimulate lots of green growth at the expense of blooms.
Thanks ercane.......I hope it comes around, if not this year at least next. It was beautiful last year, one of my faves. It gets quite a bit sun where it is but I did fertilize it with aluminum sulfate early in the spring when I was fertilizing the others. Recently I once again added more fertilizer hoping to produce some blooms. This time I used fish emulsifer which the rest seem to love. Do you think I should I stop adding fertilize? Maybe I am overdoing it.........just fell in love with hydrangeas a few years ago so it seems everything I do with them is hit or miss. I have over 15 now. I do not do anything with them in the winter.......no protection. Out of the 15 only 3 are giving me any grief, the Pinky Winky, an Endless Summer, and and a blushing bride. There is also an older one ( 7 years old) which bloomed profusely for me for years but this is the second year with no blooms. Spring freeze got it the last two years. This year I am going to try mulching it and giving it some protection.
Ercane, hope you can also help me with my climbing hydrangea. It is either 6 or 7 years old now. The last few years it is beautiful, loads of flowers, growing quite well but has not sent out any tendrils or whatever they are called to climb. From what I have read about them a lot of times it takes as long as 5 years to send out shoots but so far nothing. Do you know if there is anything I can do to make it climb? Here is a recent pix of it. Appreciate the education I am getting from you on hydrangeas, you seem to be somewhat of an expert on them. Mucho thanks
Barb
For Pinky Winky, I don't think the fertilizer is a problem. Aluminum sulfate isn't really a fertilizer, what it does is help acidify your soil so that if you have a pink Hydrangea macrophylla, you can make it blue instead. However for H. paniculata cultivars like Pinky Winky, soil pH doesn't affect bloom color so you don't need the aluminum sulfate. I don't know that it'll hurt anything as long as you're not using too much (too much aluminum is not good for plants) but it's not going to do anything for you so I'd save your time and money and not use it. If your fish emulsion is plain old fish emulsion and not something that's been "juiced up" with other stuff to bring the nitrogen numbers up it should be fine, organic fertilizers don't have high levels of nitrogen. I'm not sure if it would help, but you might try finding something that has some phosphorous in it, that's the part of the fertilizer that boosts blooms and fish emulsion is primarily nitrogen. But assuming these are the things you've been doing to it every year and it bloomed before, I suspect it's the slow start it got off to this spring that's making it not bloom this year.
On the climbing one, I haven't ever grown those so I know a lot less about them than I do about the shrub ones, hopefully someone else who's grown them will stop by and have some advice for you. I don't think the climbing hydrangeas really climb very well on their own though, I think you need to help them. Are there long branches in there that have sort of flopped over? If there are, you can pull those out and attach them to a trellis to get more of a vertical effect.