Why does my hydrangea not flower? This most commonly asked question about hydrangeas, especially in colder climates. The answer is not always a simple one but I’ll try to answer the question in this post.
Reasons for not flowering depend very much on the type of hydrangea you are growing. It is therefore important that you know the type. Have a look at Hydrangea Identification to find out which type you have.
Hydrangeas are very popular shrubs for the garden, but they can be a bit tricky to grow if you listen to all of the hydrangea myths on the internet and in books. In this blog I will look at the truth behind some of the more common hydrangea myths. Once you have the facts, you will find that hydrangeas are easy to grow.
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Are you wondering why your hydrangea is not flowering? Would you like to know when and how to prune your hydrangea? These are important questions, but no one can provide the correct answers until you know what type of hydrangea you have. This post will help with your hydrangea identification. It won’t provide cultivar names but it will identify the type of hydrangea.
It is always a good idea to keep plant names since it makes it so much easier to find the correct cultural information at a later date. But life happens and it is quite common for people to lose the name of a plant.
Planting trees seems like such a simple thing to do, but most of the trees I see have not been planted correctly. A couple of years ago I was teaching a course on trees and wanted a picture showing the right way to plant a tree. I could not find one with Google, which illustrates the lack of understanding among gardeners and professionals.
Most advice on planting trees is wrong.
Everything in the post applies to both trees and shrubs – shrubs are just short trees.
Are you looking for an unusual subshrub for the fall garden? Elsholtzia stauntonii is a good choice. The Chinese mint shrub is rare in northern gardens, where its late flowering is very much appreciated.
Pruning trees and shrubs in late summer is NOT recommended because such pruning causes new soft growth that can’t harden off before winter. You will find this advice everywhere, but is it correct?
The standard advice is to prune spring flowering shrubs right after flowering and to prune summer flowering shrubs in winter or early spring. Is this the best advice?
Why do we wrap trees and shrubs in winter? It seems to be a northern tradition. Every fall we go out and wrap plants in burlap to keep them protected from winter weather. All the books and all the web sites tell us to do this, so it must be right? Let’s have a closer look.
It is that time of year again – cold and frost are coming to the north (I live in zone 5). Think about your poor plants – they will get cold – you must do something about this immediately – right?? Common advice all over the net is to wrap your trees and shrubs in burlap to protect them from frost and to keep them warm. Plants in containers on your porch and balcony need to be wrapped in bubble wrap to keep them warm. Let’s have a closer look at this common myth and try to understand the issues.
Almost every book, and most web site tells you that you should amend your soil before planting a new plant. This seems to make a lot of sense. Few of us have perfect soil and we don’t want to put our new expensive plant into poor soil. If we amend it, the plant should grow better? That’s a common garden myth.
