This hydrangea is about 7-8 years old, if I remember correctly.
It bloomed heavily the first few years we had it.
Last year, it hardly bloomed at all. I read that one should not cut back the brown shoots in the spring, which is exactly what I'd been doing, so this spring I resisted the urge to give it a manicure.
I assumed I'd see a plant bedazzled with dozens of blossoms this summer.
The plant had two blossoms until the hail storm a couple of weeks ago. Wouldn't you know it, the hail managed to sever the stem of one of those two blossoms, leaving me with a grand total of 1 (one) blossom!
Recently I read that hydrangeas love coffee grounds, so my morning ritual now is to take the used grounds out to the plant and dump them there.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, if any of you gardeners (and by "any" I mean, of course, Linda in Seattle. You know who you are) have suggestions for getting this plant to blossom, I'd love to hear them.
Thank you!
I'm sure Linda can give you the advice you need. I'll never forget the first hydrangea blossoms I saw after moving to Oregon, they seemed as big as dinner plates. They certainly didn't grow that big in Texas!
ReplyDeleteMop head hydrangeas like this one bloom on the previous year's growth. So when you prune it, cut back only a third of the new growth, being sure to leave growth buds on new wood. Prune it in late winter/early spring.
ReplyDeleteThat means your hydrangea will continue to get bigger and bigger, but it should flower. Also you can cut old stalks back to the ground to thin the plant and encourage new stems to shoot up.
If the plant gets way too big for the space, you can cut it way back, but you will lose one or two years of blooms.
Coffee grounds add humus to the soil and might add acidity which is how some people change the color of the blooms, blue to pink an so on. But it is the pruning that will make a difference in blooming.