My first Hydrangea is now in the ground for more than 25 years. At this point, I keep it for sentimental reasons only. It's gotten so THICK with canes that if I wrap it in my usual cage, I have to get everything so tight in there that I think I may actually be suffocating the plant. I've not had good luck overwintering it in recent years. This past winter I didn't even bother with it. If I were you, I'd consider taking a cutting or digging out a portion of your sentimental one and essentially start over. It would indeed be the same plant, so you could keep your sentiment. But I can understand sentiment. I should get rid of my first Hydrangea, but I'm not. For a long time I would cut back the old canes completely to the ground in the Fall. I'd only leave canes that had shot up from low points on the canes or from the crown. They would have grown all summer and would end up giving me great flowering the next year. I'd have very long stemmed flowers, too, that I had cut. The big problem with this technique is that you end up with weaker stems than you would otherwise and next summer they'd be weighted down to the ground with their flowers. I've found that, for my zone, I can usually prune as hard as I want up until about Fourth of July, just to be easy to remember, and not hurt the flowering potential for next year. After that, the buds start setting for next year and you start running into that problem. (But then I've cut some "nikkos" back to the crown in the Fall and on some I'd get great flowering and on some I'd get none. Do I really understand this? NO.) So, here is another method for you to consider to keep it smaller, at least in height. Another thing I've experimented with is to prune all the wimpy growth completely out and just end up with a few stout canes over time. This was interesting, but you end up with an artifical looking Hydrangea and the few stout canes start looking rather strange. But with this technique, more or less, you could develop a plant that wasn't so crowded. I don't know though. I wish I could help you more. I'd like an answer to the question you have, too! Hay

You're right Hokie... And seems like they keep lowering the lows. A couple here are supposed to hit 23-22. I didn't even address those kinds of temps in my original post, but that represents an unusual weather pattern (which didn't even happen last year). In that instance there's pretty much nothing you can do to protect plants (green shoots/buds will still freeze at 22 no matter what you put on them). Late freezes are bad for almost everything though. Too many and there might not be any green anywhere until mid-May!

Frost again this morning but a week ago, several afternoon high temperature records were set. Violets are blooming again. At the end of October, there were several rose bushes around with blooms down where foliage had protected the buds. It's getting so late in the year that we might have more record highs on sunny days but still have freezing overnight. The full moon is tomorrow and it was very bright this morning! If I counted on my digits right, we had just over 9 hours of sunlight and just under 15 hours of moonlight here. Steve who might mow the lawn today ..!

Well, I do not think there is something per se that you can look for in the plant and reliably make that statement. Some people might be able to indirectly tell if they can identify the bloom but that requires that the bloom be easily distinguishable and unique from other H. macrophyllas. Perhaps another way would be to identify new stems and then determine if new stems produced or will produce new "late" blooms in the Summer or Fall. Down by the Gulf Coast, you may get some bloomage from rebloomers after temps moderate in the Fall. Over here, they try to skip blooming now because it is hot and do like the roses... have one last flush as temps come down. Complicating things, there are some old wood only shrubs that will rebloom if the weather conditions are just right (think: Nikko Blue). I have an unnamed such shrub. It was here when I bought this house so I have no idea what could it be. But every few years (3-5?), I get 1 or 2 Fall blooms. There are others that may trigger blooms when you do a little bit of late pruning. Luis