What Happened to My Hydrangeas?

 

 What happened to my Hydrangeas?  It was a very cold, snowy, and long winter on Long Island.  As a result, everyone's Hydrangeas took a terrible  hit.  Instead of lush green foliage, there were tan sticks and no leaves!

 The thing is, if you look at the base of the Hydrangea plants, you will see  that the growth is coming up from the bottom this year.

 So the thing to do is cut back the dead stems and allow the plant to regenerate from the bottom.   There are many questions about cutting the stalks of a Hydrangeas plant, regarding the proper time of the year, so as not to cut off the flower buds.   In this case cut the dead stalks away because you won't be getting any flowers on them this year.

 Against my larger barn, I have three different white Hydrangeas.  They looked so bad that I severely cut them back.  This one is the lace cap.

The second is a new variety with large white pom poms.

 This one is the older variety of large white mop heads.  Although I cut them back with hedge cutters, they seem to be leafing out really well.

 When I see remnants of a Hydrangea plant in other parts of the garden, darker parts, where the plant is not as large, I cut off the dead wood with clippers.

Here area the new shoots coming up from the base of the plant.  I believe that this is the variegated Hydrangea.

 Hopefully, it will come back soon, as it looked in this photo.

 Some of the dead wood has shoots of new growth coming out, but overall the stalk should be cut back.  I dip each stem into a bit of hormone powder and just stick them into deep planting pots.

 At the back of my garden, I have a dark wooded area where I have a transplanting station.

 The cuttings stay moist and usually root with out much trouble.

 Under the dense shade the cuttings do not dry out as quickly.

This is my Oak Leaf Hydrangea.

 Some of it died off , but it came through better than other Hydrangeas.

 This is a sprout that I found between two flag stones, that self seeded from the lace cap.  I transplanted it into a pot to mature.

So this is what you do with the spent stalks.  We are required to tie up our garden waste before we can put it on the curb.

 This is the way the back of the barn used to look with what I call the three sisters.  You can see a posting that I wrote about Hydrangeas in 2010 by clicking on the link.  Remember patients is a virtue.

 http://wwwjarvishouse.blogspot.com/2010/06/hydrabgeas-in-jarvis-house-garden.html