My Buttons & Bows' (which is in a pot and I buried the pot in the ground) old woods from last year are dead. There are new sprouts from underneath though so the plant is not really dead. It seems a weak variety so maybe if I really want to keep it and have it bloomed, I should put it in the basement inside the house when it's winter. I'm not sure if I have the patience to do these babying certain hydrangeas. I think I'm sticking to Endless Summer hydrangeas (just bought 2 more in 4Gallon containers). I'm happy with it so far. With no winter protection, all the old woods come back to me this spring. BlueBird (a lacecap) proves very cold hardy too, no die-back on old woods.

I am not sure what went wrong with your hydrangeas. We do have steady temperatures here so far in the area and nothing like that happened to mine. Some of my macs were late starters to leaf out but holding on.

I am still experiencing this strange phenomonem where an old canes from last year will have lots of nice green growth, then all of a sudden I will notice these leaves wilting & eventually they die. I cut the canes off, there is still green right under the "bark" but the inner part is now white & dry. This does not happen to the new canes forming this year, so I know the plant itself is healthy. Lerissa, my Buttons & Bows is only about 1/2 foot tall, but it does have one flower bud on it! I tried the method of putting leaves around it this past winter(the only hydrangea I did this to) and I was thinking next year I will NOT do this & see what happens.

Hey, good to hear that your' Buttons and Bows' has a flower bud on it. That is a good sign! Post a pic when you get the chance when the bloom finally opens. My 'B&B' won't surely have flowers this year. Everything is new wood and really small, only a few inches high. Its old woods are dead. It is in a transition year because last year I planted it too close to a japanese maple tree where it gets with very thick foliage in summer. That was too shady and I suspect that even the soil condition there where it was planted was poor. Remember I dug it up and moved it back into a pot and then buried the pot in the ground when winter came? So for such a delicate variety that wasn't healthy when winter started, I was not surprised why it diedback.

On a happy note all my other hydrangeas look healthy. I hope you will find out what is going on with your other hydrangeas.

Do you have 'Endless Summer' already? I have such good outcome with this new variety. The best performer in my garden. The shrub is fully covered with flower buds right now.

Talk to you later!

Hey Lerissa-
I just read your reply to me. My B&B ended up with FIVE blooms, it is only about 1 1/4 ft tall! It is so funny seeing this huge flower head on such a small "bush". This was the only macro I did the winter protection on(put a wire fence around it & filled w/leaves last fall) I also had put in a new macro this year called "pink ribbons"(search for the thread), there I have a pic posted of it next to a potted B&B I had bought at Walmart this year. It looks like a B&B, but the sepals are smaller & more pointed-looks like it's in the "Frau" series according to my Hydrangea Encylcopedia.
As for Endless Summer, I finally did break down & buy one at Walmart, I just planted it last weekend-it is VERY floppy at this stage. I haven't decided if I really like it or not. My approx 8 yr old Preziosa is my #1 favorite this year, I am going to try to post some pics-it is gorgeous! Speaking of Frank's I don't know if you remember or not but I work at a dental office that was next door to Frank's-well I sure do miss it! They have put in a "furniture warehouse" What a joke!

jlcreas,

That's great news! Hopefully mine will bloom next year too. This year my B&B has recovered, the leaves are back to being dark and glossy green. Yes ES is very floppy but I like that its flowers are blue and prolific bloomer. Preziosa is a favorite of mine too, very feminine pinkish. I miss Frank's Garden too, now I have to travel to Delaware to find a better garden store than Home Depot's or Lowe's :). I bought two unlabeled macrophyllas that were on clearance last fall before Frank's Garden closed business. Both flower this summer, one looks like a pink Nikko (which you see in the linked picture) and the other a lacecap type.

Here's a pic of my B&B now: the one near the pink mophead (that I got from Frank's on clearance). It's glossy and dark green leaves but no flowers this year (it is okay though) and also next to a paniculata 'Limelight' (I got from Frank's too) which is beginning to set flowers. The pink mophead shrub and the B&B are still in the pots that I buried in the ground. I can't decide where to plant them permanently yet :).

Hi Lerissa-
Did you have a chance to see my pic yet under the "Pink Ribbons" thread? I sure wish I knew what it was! You have gorgeous large flowers this year(I saw your pics on my "cut flower" thread)! If you have a farm fair contest nearby you should enter too! I'm going away later today, but hopefully this weekend(if no major rains) I will take some pics & diplay all in the gallery-I wanted to ask you how you post your pics right on the thread instead of as a link?

Yes I saw your Pink Ribbons thread. Both lovely flowers! I see that you have your pictures in photobucket so if you want them display here, as an example if you want that particular picture displayed here, you'd type:

<img src="http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/janice39/frau.jpg"; />

That above tag would display that image here like this:

Just change the address of the picture if you want a different one to be displayed, that would be that http:// address inside the double quotes.

Another way is to copy from the img tag from the photobucket and just paste it here.

Displaying the "greater than" and "less than" have special meanings in HTML tags. What I was trying to explain earlier is, you should type like this:

<img src="http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b247/janice39/frau.jpg"; />

Be careful on displaying big sized files of pictures. My pictures that I usually posted on this forum are usually below 100kB in file size.

Posting some pink small hydrangea blooms:

This pic is my 'Pia' aka 'Pink Elf', a dwarf hydrangea. Its flowers are very dark pink.

This is a young bloom of my Preziosa, very subtle pink:

An older bloom of my Preziosa, get darker pink as it aged but still lighter pink if you compare it with the color on blooms of Pia:

If you are curious of the source of the image tags, they were typed like the these, in the following order:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/lerissa/hydrangea/IMG_6621c.jpg"; />

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/lerissa/hydrangea/IMG_6659c.jpg"; />

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/lerissa/hydrangea/IMG_6660c.jpg"; />