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Have I killed my hydrangea?
Messi Jessi
Posts: 5
I have a hydrangea that I bought potted last year from a garden centre that I planned out in a container last summer. The container doesn't drain well and the soil stays pretty wet, hence the hydrangea choice. Within a couple of weeks of replanting the flower heads all died and dried up. Having read some stuff online I cut them off, apparently to let the plant out energy into the roots? The leaves remained and fell off when winter came.
Now is mid April and it's still just a few dead looking sticks, no buds or young leaves at all. I'm starting to worry it might be dead - time to cut my losses and plant something else in this tricky container? And if so, what? (flowers or veg that like wet soil)
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It's a bit early in the season to be worrying about hydrangeas yet - don't panic - they're slow starters in the spring.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
All my hydrangeas have put out new buds but they are in fairly well protected areas o the garden in the West of England. If you're worried you could cut one stem fairly hard back to see if there is any life in it.
My hydrangea has buds showing in the east mids it is in full sun though I don't know if this makes any difference.
My hydrangea has new buds but it has got a few dead sticks with dead flowers on them, but was told to leave them alone and not cut of dead sticks. xx
My neighbour's one budded a month ago ( full sun 10:00-14:00,NEUK). Leave it a bit and if you grow peas, there's your pea sticks.
How do the roots look? Have you had a furtle about for soil-borne pests?
Both my Paniculata type Hydrangea are showing new growth now but only within the past week or so.
My advice would be to scrape a little of the bark and see if it is green underneath. I would however worry about growing one in a container with little drainage...
one my mum bought me last spring was in a container with no drainage holes- it almost killed it.
I have 5 hydrangeas in the garden mophead, lace and paniculata. All of them have buds on at the moment. I'm in the West Midlands if that helps at all.
Still no buds, I scraped back a little bark and it is green underneath. Before potting last year I mixed some extra stones in with the soil to try and improve the drainage a bit, it may not have been enough. Think I've managed to upload a picture...
If there was green under the bark, that's a good sign. pop it in a sunny spot and see what happens.