hydrangas
jack jenkinson2
Posts: 3
for the last 3years every late spring we have bought varrious hydrangas we always take care not to buy the forced ones for the likes of easter and mothers day etc.i was always lead to believe hydrangas are peirenial plants.Our hydrangas grow superbly in the summer months and we then leave them to die back naturally in winter.come the spring of the following year they start to wake up and show sighns of new growth then for no apprant reason they stop growing after a month or so we have tried diffrent foods to encourage them all to no avail i will admit we do plant them in pots due to limited space but the pots are always sufficent in size to allow growth and drain excess water.anybody got any suggestions /ideas how i can get them to regrow the following year i look at some hydrangas near where we live who dont get any care and attention yet grow back year in year out
Posts
i have tried varrious compost and watered regualar in summer and used mirichal grow plantfood are you saying i should water and feed beyond the summer months has i say its strange how other hydrangas which seem to be never watered and fed seem to florish nearbye/i have planted a beauty in ground this year which has really florished so hoping for better results
HI we did put them in pots in the summer possibly with multicompost has i said we watered them regualar in summer months and fed them weekly orginally on mirichal grow then fortnightly has the summer progressed and they always did great until the following year once we saw new growth and danger of frost had passed we watered and fed again intially we got new growth then they just seemed to stall they didnt die off just fail to grow any more new growth or blooms.i have know transfered them to the ground and was thinking of adding john innnes around now has a top dressing it seems strange that round where we live there are many old hydrangas many are never watered or fed other thhan by rain and all come back year after year so hoping planting in the ground and mulching will do the trick for next year
Are the pots too small?
Hydro means liquid. Hydra is the multi head creature from Greek mytholog. So expert in the Mail on Saturday last weekend
You will need John Innes 3 and you cant just add a bit to the top you will need to repot. Verdun is right they do better in the soil rather than pots. I actually planted one that was forced for mothers day and because it is in good soil in a semi shady spot in the garden it is now flowering in its second year and doing well. They are easy to grow but need the right conditions.
I'm with Northern Lass (do I qualify as a Northern Lad yet, having lived here for 30 years?) - if they were doing fine and they're refusing to get any bigger, their roots are restricted. What you've got there is a bonsai hydrangea. Plant it in the ground where it belongs, on top of some gravel and garden compost.
hydrangea (n.)
1753, coined in Modern Latin by Linnæus as compound of Greek hydr-, stem of hydor "water" (see water (n.1)) + angeion "vessel, capsule" (see angio-); so called from the shrub's cup-shaped seed pods.
(from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hydrangea )
Hmmm, I hate to disagree with Nigel Colborn, but if you'd care to click here http://www.memidex.com/hydrangea+shrub
and scroll down to the etymology references you'll see that the first part of the binomial name, hydr- first coined by Linnaeus, refers to hydor or hudor, Greco-Roman for water. The second part of the binomial name comes from angeion which means vessel and refers to the shape of the seed capsules.
Where I think NC has been confused is that he has divided the name in the wrong place, hydra - ngea rather than hydr - angea.
After all,. if you think about it, the word hydrate starts 'hydra' but it doesn't refer to the Greek many-headed Hydra, it refers to water, doesn't it?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.