Why won’t my hydrangea flower?

Do you have a hydrangea that grows like crazy, but refuses to produce flowers? Don’t worry it’s more common than you might think. There are a few reasons why this might happen, and below are some common causes and solutions that should get your hydrangea to start producing flowers again.

1. The most common reason hydrangeas fail to flower is improper pruning. Many people cut off the woody stalks that are left after it drops its leaves in the fall. For most varieties of hydrangeas (with the exception the ‘Endless Summer’ family of Hydrangeas) the flowers are produced on these woody stalks, even though they appear to be dead wood they are not, and if you cut them off essentially you are cutting off the flowers before they have a chance to bloom.
2. The second reason a hydrangea would fail to flower would be that it expends too much energy on producing new growth. Usually if this is the case you will see tons of new leaves each year but no flowers. If you give it some super phosphate in the spring it should give it a boost of energy which will help it push out flowers.
3. The third reason is an unusually cold winter. Sometimes in an extremely cold winter the portion of the plant above ground will be killed but the roots will survive. When this happens the roots will push out new growth from the ground in the spring, but it will no longer be able to produce flowers. If this happens, unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to make it start flowering again.
4. The last reason is that it is not a hardy variety. Most greenhouses sell hydrangeas around Easter that have big blue or pink flowers that are sometimes mistaken for the hardy varieties. In actuality the varieties that are sold at Easter are not hardy and if they are planted outside they might come back each year because the root system might survive the winter but again, the portion of the plant above ground would be killed each winter.