Hi Erica, I'm thinking it was a combination of more fertilizer (which they don't need the first year), the insecticide spray, and the sun! Is it possible that he tender leaves did not like the spray on them and burned in the sun! You may have to cut them back and wait for new growth, but no more bug spray and limit the sun until they get used to it. New plants in pots look great when you buy them but they don't acclimate themselves to the elements for a while. I have a bed of 6 hydrangeas in shade most of the day but they get 2/3 hours of sun in early afternoon and this year we added 3 new plants to the planter and the flowers burned to a crisp on the new ones and the older ones that had been in the ground for a year or so sailed through the heat and sun with no problems! The temps went up to low to mid 90's for several days, and all the hydrangeas in my yard wilted from the heat but the flowers perked up in the evening. Don't be afraid to prune them back if necessary, it will thicken the plant for you and you should still get some blooms later on the remontant types. Good Luck! Donna

I don't grow any of the Forever and Ever, but Endless Summer is fully hardy here, right on the border between zone 4 & 5. When we have good snow cover during cold temps, I get surviving leaf buds on the branches, and even last winter when it got into the negative teens when we had absolutely no snow, it still came through with flying colors and is blooming profusely. I have it planted in morning sun next to a building and only a couple hundred feet from the Merrimack River, so it may have some protection from any late season frosts. For me it's a no fuss plant. I do have H. All Summer Beauty, which is always a bit taller than Endless Summer and doesn't have quite as many flower clusters, though they tend to be bigger. It's paler in color than ES. It's in the same bed as ES though it gets a bit more sun. The bed is really old horse manure plopped down about 8 inches deep over almost pure fine sand (too lazy to dig it in at my age) - the ideal of well drained & moist soil. On both it has lead to interesting colors, a mix of pink & blue, since the sand is acid and the manure close to neutral.

Sorry to hear that, cmeister419. I think he owes you at least a Starbucks Cafe Latte, no? Or something else? ;o) Thank God that this issue normally will not kill hydrangeas! Clarification... You did not say where you are; you wrote that 'all new wood from the previous season was chopped' instead of 'all old wood from the previous season was chopped'. Scenario 1: I assume that your last sentence meant that all the stems that ES had from last year were chopped by your husband this year and that you are now getting new growth. Based on that assumption, the flower buds that developed in the Fall (approx time frame) got cut and will not produce blooms in the early Spring time frame that they usually do for you. ES reblooms so it can produce late flower buds that produce late blooms as well but only from the mature new growth. So there is a chance that the new growth may result in flower buds and bloomage. This requires that the new growth get old enough to produce flower buds that open/bloom in the Summer/Fall time frames. It also requires that the Fall conditions that trigger dormancy do not interfere with the new growth's flower buds blooming process. You did not say where you are but some people with short growing seasons (think in cold zones) complain about not get this 2nd set of blooms at times. So, think about how ES has done in your garden reblooming-wise. If your ES hedge normally "reblooms" for you then you have a good chance to get new flower buds and blooms later on this year. Scenario 2: If you meant to say that ES produced new growth this year, your husband then cut the old and the new stems this year and ES is now producing even more new growth theeen your chances of bloomage are less. Think how ES has done in your garden (reblooming-wise) before. If it typically has produced late blooms then -MAYBE- it may produce very delayed flower buds this year. To get flower buds from a second set of new growth, the stems just have to get mature enough before winter/dormancy time arrives. Because this is the 2nd set of new growth, bud production will occur later than normal so, chances of bloomage may go down. You have a better chance of getting blooms in warm locations with their long growing seasons. Again, to get blooms under this scenario, the stems have to get mature enough to produce flower buds, wait for the buds to open and then bloom. If your growing season is long enough then these delayed flower buds might open and produce bloomage in mid or late Fall.... The other thing to also consider is your winter season's start and the reduced sunlight and photosynthesis. If your weather during the 2018 Fall is cold enough to trigger dormancy, the "delayed" flower bud production for this year may run into cold spells and weather conditions that could prevent bloomage. You will not know for sure until Fall arrives. Gosh, sorry this mess happened. I basically had something similar happen years ago... I told a friend that she could come and cut the blooms for arrangements. But she waited long enough that I plum forgot. I thhought she had decided not to get any blooms and felt safe I would get bloomage the next year (those hydrangeas only bloomed on old wood). Then I came back home one day and the blooms were gone. It was mid-July and my hydrangeas in TX develop old wood flower buds in early July. I ended with just two blooms on the following year. That is when added hydrangeas that bloom on new wood only. Sigh... Hope you get soooome bloomage. Say, why don't you have your husband plant you a new hydrangea shrub elsewhere in the garden!!! Luis

Is it a heated garage? Did you water it while dormant? Sorry @luis_pr for the delay in replying. The garage is not heated (the coldest I observed inside the garage was -12 C/10 F while it was -22 C/-8 F outside) and the only water it got was from 'clumps' of snow that I would put on it every once and awhile through the winter. So here it was on May 17: And today, about 6 weeks later: I can tell you that it looks lots larger than it actually is, but clearly it is producing flowers (on strictly new wood).