Why Won't My Hydrangea Bloom?

Was there a late spring frost in your region?

Does your hydrangea receives three to four hours of direct sunlight per day?

Do you know when and how to prune your hydrangea?

Do you use a fertilizer high in nitrogen?

Do you keep the soil consistently moist?

Did you planted your hydrangea recently?

An unseasonably late spring frost or cold temperatures can kill or stunt the flower buds and result in summer without blooms. Keep an eye on the weather forecast in the spring and when frost is in the forecast, protect the hydrangea with burlap, sheets, or blankets for the night. Remove the coverings promptly the next morning and repeat as needed.

To bloom, most hydrangeas require at least three to four hours of direct sunlight per day, ideally in the early morning or dappled sunlight in the afternoon. Locations with full afternoon sun are usually too intense. Both too little and too much sunlight can affect blooming. The panicle hydrangea can tolerate the most sun exposure.

Timing of pruning hydrangeas depends on the type of hydrangea and when it sets its flower buds. Some types of hydrangeas set buds and bloom on old wood, others on new wood, and some on a combination of old and new wood. Without knowing which hydrangea you are pruning, you risk removing the stems that will produce buds and blooms. Make sure to follow the instructions for pruning hydrangeas according to type.

When hydrangeas are given fertilizer with high nitrogen content, they produce mainly foliage and no flowers. What they need is a fertilizer that is high in phosphorus (P) because phosphorus promotes blooming. This type of fertilizer is often labeled as a bloom booster and it should be applied in the early spring and again in mid-summer.

If your hydrangea does not bloom, it could be that it was watered insufficiently or under drought stress the summer before. To prevent this from happening again, make sure the soil is continuously moist but well-drained.

It can take a couple of years for a hydrangea to become fully established. If you provide the necessary care and plant it in the right location, it might just take time and patience to see it bloom. However, planting hydrangeas in the garden that have been grown and sold as gifts usually has a low chance of survival. They have been forced into early bloom and are conditioned with lots of fertilizer.

Hydrangeas vary in their hardiness, with bigleaf hydrangeas being the least hardy and panicle hydrangea being the most cold tolerant. If a hydrangea does not bloom, it could be that it is not suitable for your hardiness zone. While the root system might survive winter if the variety produced buds on last year's stems, the buds are killed by extreme cold, and thus, no blooms the following year.