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Hydrangea has gone brown in a week.

ian166ian166 Posts: 6
in Problem solving
Hello, a week ago our hydrangea was green and going great guns, now it's brown and looking bad. Is it dying,  or dead? Should we prune it, cut it back or leave it?
Thanks!

Posts

  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    edited April 2021
    Have you had cold weather where you are? It looks to me as if it made some new growth and then got hit by frost. Leave it alone for a while, and see if it regrows. If it does, next year you should leave the old flower heads on until the risk of frost is past because they help to protect the new leaves that grow underneath them.

    PS I just noticed it's your first post, so welcome to the forum :)
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • luis_prluis_pr Posts: 123
    Make sure that the plant was located where it can only get morning sun until 10-11am. After those times, it is best to provide shade especially once summer arrives (although you did not say where you are). Only hydrangea paniculatas should be exposed to full sun, as they are probably the most sun tolerant of hydrangeas.

    Like JennyJ said, in the Spring, there could be late frosts that zap new leaves, although you did not mention any weather issues and this one picture does not seem to show other plants also hit by a late frost. Frost may have hit more plants than just the hydrangea. Can you confirm if there was any frost (temperatures slightly above freezing or below freezing) wherever you live? New foliage should develop in 2-4 weeks so, slowly and assuming that the stems are alive. If the stems do not produce new foliage by May, they can be pruned down partially to where you have leaves or you can prune them all the way down. The plant may produce new stems if any were "lost" to frost. If weather becomes a problem when the plant breaks dormancy often so consider winter protection if this occurs often in Spring. And do not fertilize early as this may make the plant break dormancy and then it can get hit by early frosts.

    You did not say if this is a new plant. Some new hydrangeas need to be acclimated slowly to increased sunlight levels. They are born with hundreds of others in near perfect conditions that include controlled light conditions. When the leaves meet the sun in the garden, they suffer and must get only full but bright shade at first (under the edge of a tree, for example) and slowly creep to get a little sun. They are also very sensitive to lack of water and the soil must be maintained as evenly moist as possible.

    If you are not watering by testing the soil often at first in Spring (for example, you water once a week or after "x" days), you need to test the soil at a depth of 7-10 cms daily and only water the soil (not the leaves) when the soil feels dry or almost dry. After a few weeks of this, you can get a feel of how often to water. I sometimes do it for 1-2 weeks and write dates when I water in my wall calendar. After 1-2 weeks, I review how often I was watering with the watering method and use the averages to determine how often to water. Afterwards, if temps go up/down a lot, I may redo the finger method again for 1-2 weeks.

    Maintain it mulched all year up to the drip line to minimize evaporation, protect the roots from cold/hot extremes and to provide nutrients as the mulch decomposes throughout the year. Use 5-10cms of organic mulch around the plant.

    To make sure that you are watering enough, water when the soil feels dry at 7-10cms. Wait for the water to be absorbed. Insert a finger into several spots around the plant to a depth of 18-20 cms and see if you still feel dry soil. If you feel dry soil, either you missed a spot when watering or you are not watering enough; consider if you need to use more water.

    To make sure you are not over watering, insert two fingers to extract a little bit of soil at a depth of 18-20 cms. Press on the soil with the fingers and see if notice water droplets forming. That might indicate that the soil has too much water.

    If a frost hit the stems too or if lack of water dried out the stems too much, this may affect flower production. An old-wood flowering hydrangea probably has flower buds inside the stems for winter protection now so, if the stem is dead, it will not produce Spring 2021 blooms in that stem. If the plant produces blooms twice a year, it may do so from the new stems if they get old and tall enough by the end of the growing season (mid summer or so).

    Lastly, should this plant be in a container, it will need more frequent waterings than other plants in the ground. You can use the finger method on pots too. Some potting mixes drain better than others so waterings of potted plants sometimes cannot be sync'ed with watering of plants that you are not growing in pots.

    Good luck and hope you get new foliage soon, Luis


  • ian166ian166 Posts: 6
    Thanks Jenny and Luis, some great tips. We did get snow about a month/month and a half ago. I'll leave it until May and see how it's looking then. Thanks for your help!
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    I think that the main problem may be that we had a warm spell at the beginning of spring ... the plants put on fresh new growth ... then we had icy winds, frosts and snow ... the fresh new growth was too soft to cope with it. 

    If the plants hadn't been encouraged by the early warm spell there wouldn't be this problem, but it's something many gardeners have experienced this year.

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • JacquimcmahonJacquimcmahon Posts: 1,039
    Yes the frost has played havoc with my hydrangeas too, although they have blackened leaves, rather than brown and crispy. I have has to cover again for tonight and tomorrow as we have another couple of below zeros predicted. Ah well at least I’ve only lost a few flowers unlike the poor fruit farmers and wine producers here in France so have lost an entire years crop due to this springs crazy weather.
    Marne la vallée, basically just outside Paris 🇫🇷, but definitely Scottish at heart.
  • luis_prluis_pr Posts: 123
    edited April 2021
    Oh, no. Good luck. If you put any heavy blankets, make sure their weight does not bend or break stems. Hopefully, it will be an overnight drop and then warmer. :) I had premature leaf out this year in January too in other plants but hydrangeas managed to keep themselves asleep when temps tanked to -18C and injured a lot of azaleas that were blooming. :o:s
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