Hydrangeas blooming issues

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M

mfsinger

Member
A friend of mine has a few hydrangeas around her property. One of them blooms every year with no problems. Another was added last year and seems to be producing a few blossoms right now. The problem is that the other three never bloom. I did some research last year and read that some hydrangeas are dead wood types and that you should not cut them back. We decided to give that a try for this year but it didn't seem to work. I did notice that the dead stalks seemed to be coming to life and that they had what looked like new sprouting leaves but that was before we had those freezing nights a little while ago (Michigan). Last week, she had me trim all of the dead stalks off as they didn't seem to be doing anything. A few of them were green on the inside as if they were trying to come to life but most of them were dried out.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any input on this. I don't know if the plants might have actually bloomed if they had not been damaged by the freeze or if it just didn't matter as this dead wood concept is bull. Maybe there's a technique to cutting them back that I'm unaware of. All I know is that she's had these plants for quite a few years and they never produce blooms.
 
Need to know the name of the hydrangeas before I can give you any helpful answers!
Also need to know what the exposure is where they are growing.
 
FINALLY, I'm getting around to posting some pictures of these Hydrangeas that won't bloom. Again, it's a friends yard and she has three plants that won't produce blooms.

Here's the first one:
http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s365/mfsinger/IMG_0124.jpg
http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s365/mfsinger/IMG_0125.jpg

Number two:
http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s365/mfsinger/IMG_0127.jpg
http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums/s365/mfsinger/IMG_0126.jpg

There's a third one that I think is the same but is tiny. It just won't get very big. The other two are rather good sized plants. I had read that some plants are dead wood bloomers so I didn't cut the stalks back but nothing really happened from them this year so my friend got frustrated and had me cut them back. They were producing leaves at that point so all we had was this nice, full plant with ugly brown stalks poking through. I'm wondering if all the cold weather caused problems (what I wouldn't give to have that cold weather back right now!)

Thanks as always.
 
Those guys do not require pruning and flower on the previous year's growth.
The flower buds are easily destroyed if there's a freezing cold snap.
Otherwise the plants are healthy!
Is any fertilizer used, and if so what is the ratio?
 
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