Of Hydrangeas and Hollyhocks
This is one of those good new/bad new posts. The bad news is that it looks like our harsh winter did a number on the hydrangeas in the perennial border. Here's what the big one looked like back in June: That's a whole bunch of dead sticks, with a tiny bit of green growth at the base. For comparison, look at the photos from June last year : that same hydrangea is pretty well filled in with green leaves along its branches around the same time of year. I let the sticks stay as they were for a really long time, just to be sure that they were really dead and not just sleeping. The thing with hydrangeas is that they set buds to flower long before winter, and if you prune them off, you are cutting away all of your future, summertime flowers. But I think it's fair to say that these are goners. All the hydrangeas around town have big, beautiful blooms now that it's July. Here's what our looks like: So it's not dead, but I think the odds ...