the neighbor of the assumed hydrangea.... I'm lost as to what to do for/to this poor guy :( It almost looks like the previous owner planted it too close to the house :/ but I'm not sure how to cut it back or what it's supposed to look like.

And one more... I guessed it might be a sweet bay magnolia? it had a rhododendron neighbor that they had tried to extend the life of... it was falling almost parallel to the ground and half of the branches were bare and white. I'm just hoping it didn't have a communicable disease :( I pulled it up after if flowered, figured I'd let it have it's last hoo-rah. But this one seems (obviously) fairly overgrown.

Sorry for all the pics, I just was hoping to figure these out so I can plan for the frosty season ahead and next years garden.

Is it possible for you to take close up pictures of the foliage?
The first is absolutely a Hydrangea macrophylla. Not knowing your growing zone makes it a bit more difficult to say, but the winter temperature dips zapped most Hydrangeas here that blom on old wood. They were killed back to the roots , so no flower production.
The weeping plant may be a cherry.

All of them were planted way too close to the house. I hope you don't have any raccoons around, because they can cause enormous damage if they take residence in your beautiful house and so do squirels.

Yes, a Japanese Hydrangea. The tall tree is a Magnolia? I thought it was a weeping cherry. Those branches that touch the beautiful siding needs to be cut or you will have trouble.

Beautiful specimen nontheless.

I'm in Massachusetts, I believe a zone 5-6

this is a shot of the branches and foliage

-Pitimpinai: The one I think might be a magnolia is the shorter one in the 3rd picture. and yes I've felt like they're all too close to the house :(

This post was edited by azsha on Sun, Aug 17, 14 at 11:43

a closer shot of the weeping trees' foliage

* lol wish I could post multiple pics rather than make extra posts ;/ ah well

Yeah that ones a Weeping Cherry Tree. They don't get very large, you would want to let it weep down and cut it above the ground a few feet off the ground. I guess they can get big but you can keep them pruned to stay small.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:309380}}

Oh please do not turn your weeping cherry into a pink umbrella. It's a very unnatural shape for that tree. It can be pruned to contain its size, but you should do some selective pruning and the draping foliage should not be cut like bangs.

Here is a link that might be useful: correct pruning weeping cherry

The plant that looks like a hydrangea might be joe pye weed which blooms in late summer,

While I definitely do not want an umbrella, the tree is so close to the house that I definitely need to trim it.... It's just a shame the previous owner planted it so close. I did have to trim back some of the side because its at the corner of the bed and abuts the driveway. The part of the house its sitting in front of is where the laundry room is and the dryer vent is just around the corner, so the heat was hurting the overhanging branches :/ but I didn't get too into trimming it since I wasn't sure what it was and didn't want to do anything crazy! Thank you for the responses!

Any idea what the bush is in the 3rd picture? The one I suspect might be the magnolia? The poor thing is so overgrown and I would assume I can trim it back in the fall, but I just would like to make sure.

The hydrangea..... the leaves look awfully healthy, what could be keeping it from flowering? Is it something that can be "fixed" or coaxed back into flowering?

I think it's a Rhododendron.

If you read my first reply on your plants, you will note that a bad winter can kill off all the old wood on Hydrangeas. Many to most Hydranageas flower on old wood so once that is killed off, no flower buds are present as these are formed the year before. If the branches are pruned at the wrong time of year, all the flower buds may be removed. This year all of the mophead and lacecap macrophylla/ serrata type Hydrangeas in this area were killed to the ground and that is in zone 7. Your garden is in a colder zone. Try the native Hydrangea arborescens or paniculata if you want reliable flowers. Both have white flowers.
Many macrophylla have a zone hardiness of 6, so any colder may mean no flowers.

see this link which lists zone 6 hardiness on macrophylla
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/faqs/hydrangeafaq2.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Hydrangea

Carol23; Thank you, I did see your post, I wasn't discounting it... however I don't understand "old wood". I am new to the garden and since I didn't plant them we are just getting to know each other :(

Thank you for your replies, now off to do more reading to better understand them :/

You can see the buds on the short tree I agree with Rhododendron.
Oh definitely please don't create another mushroom tree. So sad to see those, the draping and willowy effects are lost. Such a beautiful tree when handled properly.

Old wood is just that, the old wood part of the plant that has been there not the brand new fresh shoots. Read up on how to trim a hydrangea! It needs to be done properly. They like a lot of water hence the Hydro in the name.

Azsha, some Hydrangea macrophylla (Endless summer) flower both on old and new wood, old being the wood from the year before and new well it's obvious!

It might be that the previous owner planted one of the store bought hydrangeas. Those and many of the older variety H. macrophyllas flower only on new wood, as Carol said.

You can exchange that for Endless Summer/ Twist n'shout or hardier hydrangea varieties.

Check the below site, whenever you got time. It is one of the best sites on hydrangeas....

Here is a link that might be useful: All About Hydrangeas.

OH well, I like the "pink umbrella" and anyway they only bloom for a couple weeks then they are just green. I keep mine a couple feet off the ground because I have plants under it. It all depends on what sort of landscaping you have in your yard. If I let mine go to the ground, it would look unkempt.

I agree with calliope; I hate umbella shaped weeping cherry and weeping anything that had its bottom cut to the same length. They are the most unnatural looking plants you can ever imagine.

In Washington DC where there are thousands of cherry trees, there was not a single cherry umbrella in sight, weeping or not.

In the Smithsonian courtyard, a humongous weeping cherry drapes gracefully from top to bottom, each branch a different length. What a spectacular sight it was in full bloom.

azsha, my neighbor's weeping cherry was planted next to the house too. Recently, the new owner trimmed only the branches that touched the house leaving the remaining branches intact. It will look gorgeous next spring. I hope you will not be persuaded to have a pink umbrella in your garden.

This is the weeping cheery at the Smithsonian - so beautiful despite a heavy storm the night before:
{{gwi:309383}}

This post was edited by pitimpinai on Thu, Aug 21, 14 at 11:53

It's not only unsightly, it's not good for the tree. Lopping off each branch will encourage lots of lateral branch growth, making the canopy congested, and then you'll get leaf death from lack of photosynthesis, not to mention foliar disease issues.

I don't think that mine looks like an umbrella at all and had never once thought of that until it was mentioned here in this thread. Everyone in this area keeps theirs trimmed up off the ground. A lot of people also have their other shrubs trimmed into balls or squares. It's what you call formal landscape. I'm sure a large weeping cherry would look great allowed to go wild if it's in the right landscape situation. Where the OP has hers, it will need to be kept trimmed off in the back to keep it away from the house. I didn't see anything under it so it could be allowed to reach the ground.

I did not mean to insult you, arkansas girl. It's your gardens and that's a gardener's prerogative to make it suit your likes and dislikes. It is not kind to the tree, and although 'everybody' does it I'm just trying to convey that in a small, top-grafted tree like this, one has to be very careful in their pruning techniques and this treatment will cost your typically short-lived tree a few years off its life. It's an improper pruning method and is not an example of 'formal' gardening. There are ways to selectively prune her weeping tree to keep it away from harming her house without doing it this way. Your tree has been grafted near the top, and the actual weeping part of it has very little stem tissue. If you keep lopping it off, and encouraging the branches in that small area to produce lateral growth it will just literally turn into a matted ball of branches and foliage and be terribly hard to correct after the fact.

just thought I'd follow up on the weeping cherry; he got a trim and looks much healthier.... there were quite a few dead branches below the knot, and some really strange growing stragglers in some really uncomfortable looking directions lol. so here's the new look, not a HUGE change but enough that it's not touching the ground.

Oh and the Hydrangea DOES have one flower.... it was hidden growing low and behind the tree. I think when my father in law and husband trimmed the bushes they trimmed the wood on the hydrangea too; at least the look of confusion on their faces when I mentioned the "wood" growing out like sticks, gave way to their faces turning red.....

the ONE flower on the hydrangea