LL should be fine. It is very tough and winter hardy to Z3. It also develops blooms after winter is over. The most I would do for LL (and any other hydrangea) is maintain 3-4" of organic mulch..

And the chicken wire with leaves or mulch should do fine for ES if you want to preserve the early Spring blooms. If you do not winter protect it, the stems that do not leaf out by mid May can be cut and the new stems will bloom, albeit later in the summer months.

Winter protection is needed only in cold zones like 6 or less (or when you have the possibility of the plant breaking dormancy). I generally do not use winter protection but my plants have awakened in mid winter two years in a row so, I am going to use it on those that had no blooms the last two years.

The flowers and leaves can be left and eventually they will fall down. The leaves will disintegrate faster and the petiole string that connects the stem with the leaves will stay until much later next year. I generally let Mother Nature take care of both. I suppose you could use them as mulch too or put them in a compost pile.

In the rare case when the plant has some fungal disease, I would pick up the blooms and leaves now and throw them in the trash to prevent spreading fungal spores.

Thanks for the response. Well I am in zone 6A , would you say it's necessary to protect the ES then? If not, it would be nice not to do it as it would take some time, and the ES are in the front and having chicken wire cages is not the nicest of sights.

I heard also taking snow at the first fall and piling it on top of the ES helps insulate. (Kinda scares me though with all the weight of the snow)

I will have to cut some leaves off as I think there was a lot of leaf spot going on with my ES.

Winter protection allows you to keep alive the invisible flower buds that are currently at the end of ES's stems. These flower buds tend to open early in Spring and bloom in May-June ish. If these flower buds die or if the stems die during winter (say, due to lack of winter protection), ES should develop new stems in Spring and these will produce flower buds that will open during the summer months. So if you decide to winter protect, add as much leaves/mulch as you can and separate the ends of the stems from the chicken wire (the more separation, the more protection from the cold and drying winds). A lot of people post about problem with ES blooming so I recommend evaluating its performance for at least three years and theeen deciding what to do.

Hi A S - I am also in SE Michigan and this will be the first time I will winter protect a couple of my hydrangeas. Hopefully your ES's have been more successful than mine - I gave up on them a couple years ago and replaced them with Bobo's and Quick Fires - which I love! But even my oakleafs didn't bloom the last 2 years. So I'm going to experiment with one batch of them - I have tall fencing, tons of leaves, and I'm also going to buy some burlap to wrap on the outside of the cage. It sounds like a lot of work - so I'm only going to do it on two of them that are near each other. Then in the Spring I'll evaluate whether or not it made a difference. If not, I'm going to gradually move to all Annabelle's, Quick Fires and Bobo's. Fall is already such a busy garden time (I mulch all my leaves) that to also have to winter protect these shrubs is just one more time consuming task. I'm running out of steam!

But I must say that when I take walks or bike rides through my neighborhood, nobody had blooms these past two years - either people will gradually buy other types of shrubs or they will start to winter protect.

A S - if you want to be certain of ES blooms next year, yes, you need to winter protect. If it dies back, you may or may not get bloom later in the season, and even if you do, it will be sporadic.

There's no need to "cap" your covering with anything. I prefer using chopped leaves as they're more dense and should better conduct the ground temps. But I haven't tried just using regular leaves in my cages.

Interesting what you said about the oakleafs, Mary. My oakleafs dd not bloom two winters ago either. And one oakleaf did not bloom last winter but the others did. Since the stems leafed out normally both times, I assume the flower buds got killed somehow; watering issue or a weather problem that made the plant break dormancy just as a cold snap arrived (that would kill the flower buds if not winter protected).

I am hoping for better results this year too and will check the soil moisture more during this winter in order to figure this out and rule all possible issues. Oakleafs are hardy to Z5 but the production of flower buds in July-August can be a problem in winters like the last two.

However, oakleafs are not alone. My mopheads were a complete disaster area two winters ago (ie, no blooms), well, except for one. Last winter was an improvement but I still had about half of them not blooming. Same thing as the oakleafs... the stems leafed out ok but got no blooms. No wonder I sometimes stop and look and wonder when I see remontant ones. Ha! Good luck to the two of us this winter.

Paniculatas would most likely get around this problem since they bloom on new wood but they do not have mophead's colored blooms and they bloom very late (early June here but in July-August in Michigan). My Little Lime and Little Quickfire have done well.

I am going to take my sister's young kids to see a movie for free but the price is they have to help with the winter protection. Hee hee hee. We will see how and if that works. ;o)

Hi Mary - they were OK this year. They came already in a bloom from the nursery so I am sure they have has a confused year when they were transplanted in Michigan in may. I think I need to add some Aluminum Sulfate next year as the blooms this year started out blue from the nursery, then new ones came in blue-ish white and some pink-ish. But all looked very faded. The pink or blues were not really strong like they were when we bought them. Honestly, kinda wish we went with something more like the little limes instead of the ES also. The LL never wilted once, the ES on a hot summer day looked awful.

We will give the ES a chance for a year or two to see how it does if not maybe replace them with the Little Quick Fires or more LL, so something a big hardier and that requires less "maintenance"

Thanks everyone for your help. Will get to work with some winter protection :)

"ES on a hot summer day looked awful."

I find that ES does best with morning only sun. With that, I find mine occasionally looks a wee bit limp, but never looks awful. It is in a spot where it doesn't get any supplemental water.