I need some help for sure. I have 2 Hydrangea plants and the look like woody sticks. I just planted them this year and they have done nothing. I think after reading many post here, one of the problems is I have not been watering them enough. The woody sticks have a few leaves on them but they are yellow, wilted and curled. They are planted in a the front yard garden which they get little sun. The garden they are in also is full of small white rock and I am not sure if this was a mistake. I have cut them back to almost nothing, and I am going to transplant them this weekend. They get afternoon sun, but not much. I am going to move them to a fairly sunny area, morning shade, afternoon sun. I am going to put some bone meal in when i transplant them and I hope this is right. Please let me know if I should put bone meal when transplanting? If I should not put rocks around the stems? If there is any chance these may come back? If anyone has any other ideas or suggestion what I should do, I appreciate any help I can get! Thanks so much
I'm no expert on hydrangeas, but they do definitely like water. It sounds like your plants are very stressed. I would not recommend transplanting them now. I doubt they would survive. Wait until they are dormant in the fall. They need sun to bloom, but won't like more than a half day of it.
leave them where they are. remove some of the rocks that are right around the base of the bush so that more water can reach the roots. too late now...i wouldn't have trimmed them back at all as they bloom from the old wood. they can take a couple of years to get established and a little longer if they don't get enough water during the growing season. the lighting conditions where they are now are good...moving to a spot with afternoon sun would NOT be good...these bushes like to be shaded from the hot afternoon sun. start watering every couple days if there's no rain, mulch with crushed leaves for the winter and as soon as it's getting warm in spring, remove the mulch. as soon as you see shoots starting, get it on a watering schedule and keep it up if there's not sufficient rain to take care of it. you probably won't get blooms next year...no worry, just let it do it's thing and the following year you'll see some. they don't need any pruning at all...just let them be. some years they may die back completely and others they may not. once the root systems are fully established (which can take 3 years) they'll have good growth and tons of blooms.
