The top is common mallow, or malva. It spreads like wildfire but is a really pretty plant - I grow it because of the late summer flowers, but end up pulling hundreds of seedlings throughout the season. (I resized the photos, to make the thread easier to read...)

Not sure about the middle plant- it's pretty though!

The bottom photo is a hydrangea, but it would be difficult to get an id - many light blues are sold as Nikko but that seems to have become a general term instead of an actual cultivar name.

Thank you. The blue hydrangea looks dead at the end of each fall. Should I just leave it or cut it back? Any suggestions to encourage blossoms?

Hydrangeas lose their leaves in the fall so that's why it looks dead or dying at that time. It's too cold in your zone for the buds on this type of hydrangea to survive. You also have a narrow window each year to prune this type of hydrangea because the buds set on last years growth. So if you prune it too late in the season, it will not set buds for blooms the following year. If you want a hydrangea that blooms reliably then you need to get another type preferably one that blooms on new growth. There is a variety of mophead (the same species as yours) called Endless Summer that blooms on new growth. It can be found at a lot of garden centers nowadays including Home Depot, Lowes, etc. Panicle hydrangeas with the cone-shaped flowers are another type of hydrangea. These flowers bloom on new growth and are white but they fade to light pink. The PeeGee hydrangea found in a lot of garden centers is in this class. I'm not a big fan of white flowers but I do find the panicle hydrangeas very attractive although not as much as the mopheads.

tree_oracle, thank you for more information. Any idea what the shrub shaped plant is in the middle photo? Weed?

The middle photo isn't a eupatorium, is it?

:)
Dee

The middle one looks like some sort of Spirea - maybe meadowsweet? Hard to tell from this distance. Can you get us a close-up of the flowers?

It would help to kn ow if the plant in the middle photo is really a shrub or a herbaceous perennial. A shrub is a plant that keeps its "structure" - trunks, branches - over the winter, where a perennial will die back to the ground over the winter and send up all new shoots in the spring.

"Shrub shaped plant" doesn't really tell us much, since shrubs and perennials are all sorts of shapes; some herbaceous perennials are larger at this time of year than many true shrubs.

If you have not seen the plant over the course of the winter and spring, you can sometimes (but not always) tell a lot by looking at the base; if the base is woody and there are thick branches all the way down, then it's a shrub; if the stems are all about the same thickness and come directly out of the ground (not from a trunk) then it's probably a perennial.

Once we know that, we may be able to give you an id. There's also a forum called "name that plant" where they solve these mysteries, so if we draw a blank, you might try that.

I am in CT and grow the type of hydrangea that sets blossoms in the late summer for the blossoms in the following spring or fall. It looks exactly like the one in the photo. I mulch them at the end of the season and then I wrap them in burlap for protection prior to winter, but after they are well past growing for the season. They blossom every year with the exception of the year with bad ice storms. I am also not counting the year I did not know not to trim them after the beginning of August.

If I had to do it all over again, I would definitly get a different kine of hydrangea that does not need as much work to blossom.

The center photo looks a lot like Clethra alnifolia, the Sweet Pepperbush. I cannot quite make out the leaf detail. The flowers have a spicy fragrance.

Spiraea latifolia (aka Spiraea alba) leaves have more jagged edges than Clethra, and is a possibility. Both of these plants can be found growing wild and prefer somewhat moist soil.

Today I will try to take a closer picture of the middle plant.
evonnestoryteller, we are in the far NW corner of CT near the MA line. Lots of snow, ice and usually a lot colder than the the closer towns. What kind of Hydrangea would you suggest.

The middle is definitely Meadowsweet, our wild Spiraea.

Hello! I am in the NW corner of CT too!

I am not an expert on the hydrangea, since I got a whole bunch of the ones that require more care in our area. Ever since I purchased those, I read about the ones that blossom on the new wood as well as the old. Endless Summer is the variety that I read about all the time.

Going along with Ellen, Spiraea latifolia is a wildflower in our area, so there is a good chance that is the one.