{"id":11963,"date":"2019-07-23T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=11963"},"modified":"2019-07-19T16:11:15","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T20:11:15","slug":"why-my-hydrangeas-are-not-blooming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2019\/07\/23\/why-my-hydrangeas-are-not-blooming\/","title":{"rendered":"Why My Hydrangeas Are Not Blooming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thankfully, this is not a very common problem that few gardeners run into. U.S. gardeners grow four (4) species of hydrangeas: smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens<\/em>), oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia<\/em>), bigleaf hydrangea (H. macrophylla<\/em>), and panicle hydrangea (H. paniculata<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
‘Limelight’ hydrangea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are five reasons why some hydrangeas don’t bloom:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Type of hydrangea<\/strong>\u2026 Bigleaf hydrangeas, those that produce blue or pink flowers, are the most troublesome. Lots of cultivars are available, some that are very winter hardy and others not so much. If winter temps in your region are extremely low, plants may die back to the snow line or to the ground. Bigleaf hydrangeas bloom on both old (last year\u2019s) and new (current season) wood. Loss of the old wood results in your hydrangea blooming only in late summer on current season’s wood. No flowers may mean that the variety that is not reliably hardy in your zone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Not enough sunlight<\/strong>\u2026 The site should receive 3-6 hours of direct sun daily. Panicle hydrangeas require the most sunlight and oakleaf hydrangeas and smooth hydrangeas as little as 2 and 3 hours daily respectively. As a rule, more sunlight means more flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Bigleaf magnolia (H. macrophylla<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. Pruning at the wrong time<\/strong>\u2026 \u00a0Generally, hydrangeas don\u2019t need pruning other than to control plant size and to remove dead wood. Pruning time is most important. H. macrophylla<\/em> and H. quercifolia<\/em> plants are pruned in early summer or in late winter; H. arborescens<\/em> and H. paniculata a<\/em>re pruned in late winter to early spring before new growth begins. Don\u2019t cut plants back too far. If your hydrangea won\u2019t bloom, skip pruning any time. You may be overpruning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Too much fertilizer<\/strong>\u2026 Overfeeding your\nhydrangeas particularly with too much nitrogen (N) or not enough phosphorus (P)\nin the soil. High nitrogen levels produce lush green growth, but little to no\nblooms. Phosphorus is responsible for the flowering and fruiting in most plants.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Deer<\/strong>\u2026 If you live in an area with deer, their feeding may prevent your hydrangeas from blooming. One solution is to construct a 6 foot (or higher) fence around your garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thankfully, this is not a very common problem that few gardeners run into. U.S. gardeners grow four (4) species of hydrangeas: smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens), oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia), bigleaf hydrangea (H. macrophylla), and panicle hydrangea (H. paniculata). There are five reasons why some hydrangeas don’t bloom: 1. Type of hydrangea\u2026 Bigleaf hydrangeas, those that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,657,1319,1304,299,1037,144,1498,665,1324,1138,10,622,1399,675,853,551,1476,627,1403,601,729,933,629,777,630,705,706,646,7,1,71,113,455,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11967,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11963\/revisions\/11967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}