Just one note to auntie clara. The blooms dry well in upright position. You must also spread some old newspapers to catch the pollens that fall off the blooms otherwise, it will be messy. re the flopping blooms. because the blooms can get too heavy, I make a selection of which blooms to retain and which to deadhead. I prefer to leave the blooms on the branches that are strong and thick while removing blooms from underbranches that are thin and straggly. In anycase, the cut branches will form new branches that will also start producing new blooms (just can't remember whether that will be in the next season or the following season). So cutting the blooms off will actually result in doubling the blooms. Ianna

The terms do not mean what you are probably thinking. "Blooms on old wood" applies to hydrangeas like Mopheads and Oakleaf hydrangeas- hydrangeas of these types produce invisible flower buds on last year's growth (around July-August-September) and these open in the Spring. Last year's growth is what is meant by "old wood". If my old-wood mophead develops a new stem this Spring, I would not expect bloomage from it until Spring 2016. "Blooms on new wood" applies to hydrangeas like Limelight and Annabelle- hydrangeas of these two types produce invisible flower buds this year (around May-July) and these invisible flower buds then open as soon as they are ready (in a month+ or so maybe? meaning you are not waiting all winter long for example). The stems that produce blooms may be brand new ones from this year. Or they could be stems from last year that leafed out this year. New stems, by the way, will not be as strong and as older ones. They will not support big heavy blooms as well so, you could see new stems with large blooms bending. Older stems get stronger as time passes and can support bigr/heavy blooms better.

All you can do is provide an environment that will help them bloom and then yank them if they cannot. Things you can do: fertilize only once in Spring after your average date of last frost; maintain them mulched with 2-4" year around; watch out for deer; never prune if you can help it; old wood needs to stay until your average date of last frost in case it leafs out late (you can also do a scratch test and very carefully scratch the cambium layer to see if you see green); deadhead spent flower by cutting off the peduncle string that connects the bloom to the stems (never the stems as this is where invisible flower buds develop); maintain the soil as evenly moist as you can; provide morning sun (new growth will need to get tall and old enough to develop invisible flower buds and open them so the more sun, the better); watch out for early and late frosts; consider using winter protection when the plant goes dormant in the Fall and remove it after your average date of last frost (you could remove it earlier but then late frosts could hit the plant, kill leaves and disrupt the proper timing and development of new growth stems that will produce blooms late in the growing season). Plants sold in nurseries are old enough to produce bloomage but if the roots are disturbed or if the plants are planted in the summer, flower buds may be aborted and then you get no blooms in year one but start getting blooms in year two.

Eeek. I didn't realize deer would attach limelight hydrangeas. But our limelights have lost all their leaves, with just the flowers left. Would that be deer, or something else? I didn't think they'd just lose their leaves in the fall. The designer who did our plan largely specified rabbit and deer resistant varieties, so I was surprised to learn about these. We never had a significant deer problem with our rhododendrons, and the rabbits haven't touched the mountain hydrangeas we have up front. But if the deer (and rabbits) are gong to destroy the limelights, I'm going to have to search for an alternative shrub.