Image by DrScythe from Pixabay

Have you ever looked at a hydrangea plant with its full blooms in the summer? If you have you know that they are among some of the most beautiful plants that you can have in your garden.

Of course, they don’t just belong in the yard. They make beautiful floral displays inside the home. Because they stand out so well it is easy to notice when the blooms or anything other than ideal.

Having a hydrangea in your yard that simply isn’t blooming is beyond frustrating but most of the time if something is wrong and your hydrangea isn’t blooming to its full capacity, the solution is something rather simple.

How to make hydrangeas bloom

When your hydrangea isn’t blooming it might simply be because of the species that you have. Different species will grow flowers on the brand new wood they grow that year, while others grow flowers on the old wood that they grew the year before.

Incorrect Pruning

If this is the case, sometimes the type you have might have been accidentally pruned to such a degree that it impacted the blooms you get this coming season. You need to figure out which variety you have so that you can verify whether the flowers are designed to appear on the wood grows this season or the wood that it grew last season.

Hydrangeas that produce flowers on the wood that they grow this season typically don’t have this problem but if you have a hydrangea like a big leaf hydrangea, you might have cut it back to the base during the wintertime especially if you had a particularly cold winter and, given the fact that the flowers tend to show up on the old wood from the year prior, there simply might not be wood for the flowers to use.

This is usually the most remedial of solutions and if it is true that you may have cut back too far, rest assured that you didn’t damage the plant, you just might have to wait another season before you get the hydrangeas that you desperately want. The flowers will have to wait until more wood has been grown this season and is available for flower production next season.

Not a suitable growing area for your variety

Another reason that your hydrangeas may be failing in terms of flower production is that you picked a variety that simply isn’t doing well in your zone or in the part of your yard that you have selected. In order to make your hydrangeas bloom more effectively, you need to make sure that you know the variety you have, and you need to know whether it grows well in your area.

For example, if you live in an area that has sunlight all day long with no shade at any point, you can really only grow a panicle variety of hydrangea. But perhaps you didn’t know that and accidentally planted a mop head. In this case, the plants might simply be burning and dying off from too much sun exposure. You could do something to add shade if this is the case or simply replace the plant with one that is better suited to your area. If you have particularly cold Winters the same could be true such that your hydrangea variety does not do well with cold Winters and is one that needs to be replaced.

Soil type and lack of essential nutrients

If none of this applies to you and yet you still need to find a way to help encourage blooms with your hydrangea, it’s time to consider the soil. Hydrangeas need moist soil at all times, soil that is always wet to such a degree that the roots stay wet but never so wet or so dry that the roots get damaged one way or the other.

Additionally, they need rich compost soil so it might be time to fertilize. Depending on the variety that you choose you can add different fertilizers with various nutrients and compounds. It might be in your best interest to test the soil that you have to see if there are any key nutrients missing naturally so that you can incorporate those missing nutrients into your next round of fertilizer. Slow-release fertilizer is our best but of course, you can do one or two-year applications and this will help keep your flowers lush. A lack of phosphorus or too much nitrogen is usually the key problems when it comes to soil and fertilizer. Phosphorus is what allows your plant to flower so you simply might need to add more phosphorus to your fertilizer. One way to naturally do this is to add bone meal.

By simply taking care of your plant, knowing which variety you have, and exercising caution with pruning, you can help your hydrangea to bloom beautifully.