I planted two climbing hydrangeas 8 years ago; one on the east side of my front porch which gets morning sun, the other on the west side which is shaded until afternoon when it gets hit with the worst heat of the day. The one on the east side is huge and loaded with flowers every spring, the other I have to look for with a magnifying glass. Since I am able to grow other things on the west side (mostly the stuff you can't kill if you try), I would guess that the climbing Hydrangea is very particular about how much sun it gets and when. You could try propagating a bit of this one and trying another location as an experiment. A reeeally slow experiment! MsB

Are you SURE the maple is dead?! Maples are notorious waterhogs... and they sucker from the roots relentlessly. If you cut down the main trunk they will sprout again from the roots with great vigor.

I wonder if the maple is really dead, at all! In fact, it may well be consolidating resources and sucking them up efficiently before your CH can access them...

Just a thought. Whenever we take down a maple we have the stump yanked out, ground down, or we drill it out and fill the holes with fertilizer.

"Nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" - Alien