After a spectacular 2024, are hydrangeas set for another strong comeback this year?

Boston Globe

14-05-2025

To understand why there's such a difference from year to year in just how prolific the hydrangea blooms will be, you need to understand a little bit about the habit of these quintessential New England plants.
There are three main varieties of hydrangea that most people have in their yards. Macrophylla, which are the large leaf mop heads, mostly blue or pink plants. Then there's the Annabelle and the paniculata. These last two bloom on what is called 'new wood' or this year's growth. This is why for those particular categories of plants, you can prune them hard in late winter and early spring and still get plenty of flowers. The density of your blooms on those types of plants is going to be more related to the spring and summer weather, as well as whether you have adequate soil nutrients to produce flowers.
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But it's different for the mop head variety. Although there have been new varieties developed over the years that bloom on new wood, the best blooms in this group occur on last year's growth. This means that the flower buds form in the late summer and early fall of the previous year and sit out all winter long exposed to the elements.
Macrophylla hydrangea, or the mophead variety like nikko blue, are showing early budding this time of year.
Dave Epstein
In a cold, particularly dry and windy winter, those bloom buds can get desiccated and will not flower. The plant itself is not dead, and you'll often see new growth sprouting from the ground, which will form flower buds for the next year, but you'll miss the existing year. This is what happened in 2023.
Because the winter of 2023-24 was so mild, nearly all of the bloom buds survived, and thus we had an
Because of the drought last fall and the first part of the winter, there's likely some damage to the flower buds. Additionally, those plants that are marginally hardy probably will not bloom this year because of the average cold we saw in January and February.
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Blue hydrangeas in Lexington last summer.
Joanne Rathe Strohmeyer/Globe Staff
I have one plant that bloomed last summer that had not bloomed for over a decade, and it looks like it's not going to bloom this year.
The bottom line is that I think it's going to be a very good year for hydrangeas, likely not as good as last year, but for some plants, it's going to be pretty close, so get ready to enjoy another round of a local favorite in the garden.
A Hydrangea blossom in a Quincy front yard.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
You can see the leftover flowers from 2024 just as early buds have popped up in mid-May. You can cut the spent flowers, but be careful not to cut viable buds.
Dave Epstein
Paniculata hydrangea that were pruned in late winter are now showing new growth, which will flower in late summer.
Dave Epstein
Have a gardening question for Dave? Send them to [e-mail], and we will include them in an upcoming column from Dave.