Hydrangea does not bloom! Why?
Garden hydrangea is one of the most common flowers in a summer cottage. The beautiful appearance makes gardeners buy hydrangea seeds of different colors, shapes and cultivation methods.
However, the beautiful Hortense is very moody. It is worth making a small mistake in caring for a flower, and she may not dissolve the buds, or her flowers will be dull and quickly fade. There are a number of identified reasons why a hydrangea may not bloom. In this article, we will cover most of them.
The first reason is the initially incorrectly chosen place for planting a flower. For hydrangea, open areas lit all day are completely unacceptable. Of all the varieties, only one "serrated hydrangea" tolerates the sun's rays, and even then no more than eight hours a day.
If planting a hydrangea in a shady place is not possible, and you really want to grow beautiful flowers, then you can go for a little trick. The trick is to initially lower the planting so that the planting base is about ten centimeters lower than the rest of the soil. In this case, the trunk circle must be covered with additional mulch, for example, sawdust.
However, when choosing a location, you should not go from one extreme to another. Too shady places without access to at least a small amount of sun will also negatively affect the flowering of hydrangeas, the buds may not bloom at all.
In addition to the scorching rays of the sun, all varieties of hydrangea do not tolerate strong gusts of wind. Therefore, it is customary to plant them in places protected from the wind. However, do not think that by planting flowers right next to the wall of the house or fence, you will solve the problem with the wind. Such a neighborhood with buildings, on the contrary, can harm the hydrangea, as it will lead to the rapid oppression of flowers.
In addition, the selected area should be well-drained, and rainwater should quickly be absorbed into the soil without stagnating on it.
It is also not worth planting hydrangeas near trees, since they will take away the moisture they need from the flowers.
The next reason for the lack of hydrangea flowering is the incorrectly selected watering regime. Even from the Latin language, the word Hortensia means "a container of water", which indicates how much the flower loves moisture.
Therefore, on dry days, watering is simply vital to her, preventing the soil around the flower from drying out.
Of course, it is important not to flood the hydrangea with water, this will undoubtedly lead to the death of the plant.
On cooler days, you can water the hydrangeas once a week; in heat or drought - once every few days. However, it is worth considering the nature of the soil when watering. So, for example, on clay soils, which are quite heavy in structure, watering is carried out less often than on the others, but sandy soils must be watered abundantly and often.
A seedling that is poorly adapted for planting can also cause the hydrangea not to bloom. If the seedling was bought already with open roots (without land on the root system), then there are fewer problems with adaptation, because the seedling will be happy to be in any land.
It is important to prepare the correct soil mixture for planting. The ideal substrate for planting seedlings is a mixture of peat humus and fertile soil. For the best effect, sand and sod can be added. All ingredients must be mixed in equal amounts. Besides good organic fertilization, this substrate is a good ventilation conductor into the soil.
The wrong choice of feeding for hydrangea is also a good reason for its "non-flowering". Especially carefully you need to dispense with the use of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing preparations. An excess of nitrogen will definitely provoke the release of new shoots, but they simply will not have time to harden and harden before the onset of the first frost. This will lead to the fact that the new branches will simply freeze, and behind them the flower buds will freeze and die from hypothermia.
Hydrangeas cannot be fed with nitrogen during the ripening of the peduncles. This will lead to the appearance of new foliage, which can interfere with the correct formation of young buds and, accordingly, their full correct flowering.
If it introduces nitrogen, it is only in the spring, at the very beginning of the growing season, when new leaves and shoots will, on the contrary, be extremely useful for the photosynthesis of the flower.
It will not be superfluous to carry out several dressings with the help of various useful salts, and for the winter to apply organic fertilizers, such as compost.
Incorrectly chosen or untimely autumn pruning of shoots and an incorrectly chosen shelter for the winter. Depending on the variety of hydrangea, flower stalks are formed on the shoots of the current or previous year. During pruning, it is worth, first of all, to take into account this feature.
Such species, in which flowers formed on the branches last year, need to be covered in time for the cold season. In order for young shoots to grow stronger and harden before the onset of frost, it is necessary to get rid of all the leaves in the lower half of the bush in about three weeks.
If the soil in which the hydrangea grows and develops is initially acidified, then, as a rule, alkalization of the soil can occur. To prevent this from happening, in the care you need to use fertilizers that are suitable directly for hydrangeas. The composition of such fertilizers already includes additives that will help to regulate and normalize a high or low percentage of soil acidity.
Despite the fact that hydrangeas are resistant to various diseases and pests, improper care can still lead to various injuries and diseases. The most common disease in hydrangeas is chlorosis. In other words, this is a violation of the absorption of iron.
There is also a risk of a disease such as powdery mildew. The risk of infection is especially great at the end of summer, when there are sharp temperature changes between hot days and frosty nights.
One of the most common pests of hydrangea is the spider mite, which stops the formation of flower buds.
The last of the listed, but not the least important reason is the wrong hydrangea variety. There are a large number of varieties that are not initially adapted for the short, cold summer. At the same time, they can calmly grow and give green beautiful leaves, but such hydrangeas will not bloom, since they simply will not have time to form flower buds in the cold.
For your garden plot, it would be more correct to choose those hydrangeas that can actively grow in the open ground of your particular region.
If you eliminate each of the reasons for the absence of hydrangea blooming point by point, you do not have to worry that the flower will not please you with beautiful petals and a healthy look.