{"id":6851,"date":"2015-03-18T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=6851"},"modified":"2014-10-16T19:09:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T23:09:38","slug":"why-mophead-hydrangeas-do-not-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2015\/03\/18\/why-mophead-hydrangeas-do-not-bloom\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Mophead Hydrangeas Do Not Bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hydrangea<\/a>

Hydrangea macrophylla at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Hydrangea<\/a>

Hydrangea ‘After Midnight’ in Savannah, GA Garden<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The introduction of Endless Summer\u00ae hydrangeas in the 1990’s got gardeners excited about growing mophead hydrangeas \u00a0(Hydrangea macrophylla<\/em>) again. Mophead hydrangeas bloom both on old wood in the spring and again on new wood\u00a0in mid-summer. Flowers have either a blue\/pink color depending on the pH of the soil. Endless Summer hydrangeas bloomed in cooler areas previously\u00a0off limits\u00a0for\u00a0mopheads.<\/p>\n

Bad Winter?<\/strong>\u00a0 Endless Summer hydrangea series are still very dependable and have spawned a number of new\u00a0series.\u00a0Still, abnormally cold weather\u00a0in many areas may greatly decrease late spring\/summer flower numbers. On the first day of spring ask yourself how the previous winter felt personally. If you rate\u00a0the winter\u00a0as bad, likely spring mophead bloom will be less.<\/p>\n

Available sunlight<\/strong>. In the north (zones 4\u00a0– 5),\u00a0mopheads can handle almost full day sun. In zones 6 and 7\u00a0\u00a0reduce to 4-5 hours of mostly morning sunlight, and in zone\u00a08 to 9\u00a0in\u00a0day-long high shade. Less than optimum light levels means less flowers.<\/p>\n

Wrong Cultivar. <\/strong>The marketplace is very confusing with many non-hardy cultivars still being sold.<\/p>\n

Late\u00a0Freezes.<\/strong> Hydrangea buds open very early. Late spring freezes frequently destroy or injure flower buds and new growth. Keep the crown (plant base) heavily mulch until mid-May in most areas.<\/p>\n

Over-fertilizing<\/strong> hydrangeas may result in dark green\u00a0foliage (a good thing) and fewer flowers (not so good). In USDA zones 4 and 5, do not fertilize\u00a0past August 15th, as it may lead to winter injury.<\/p>\n

Overwatering <\/strong>mopheads may\u00a0push too much growth and fewer flowers.\u00a0On hot summer days seeing\u00a0mophead leaves\u00a0wilting in mid-day is very common.\u00a0Irrigate once weekly, 1 to 1 \u00bd inches of water, rather than a little bit every day.<\/p>\n

Pruning <\/strong>mopheads in the fall is a mistake. Spring flowers are borne on the old wood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The introduction of Endless Summer\u00ae hydrangeas in the 1990’s got gardeners excited about growing mophead hydrangeas \u00a0(Hydrangea macrophylla) again. Mophead hydrangeas bloom both on old wood in the spring and again on new wood\u00a0in mid-summer. Flowers have either a blue\/pink color depending on the pH of the soil. Endless Summer hydrangeas bloomed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,6,675,853,202,843,601,630,705,706,646,7,71,455,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851"}],"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=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6856,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}