Yeah, most likely you will need to put -say- chicken wire around the shrub to protect the ends of the stems. That is where the flower buds develop in July-August for Spring. That is called blooming on old wood. A few of those hydrangeas have the ability to ALSO bloom on new wood that grows from the crown as you are seeing; those flower buds will then open in late June to July-ish. The chicken wire is packed super full of dried out leaves in the Fall or use organic mulch. Top with cardboard and hold it in place with rocks. Add more leaves or mulch in midwinter due to settling.

Below is a link to a lot of information about hydrangeas; the webpage on the link shows the various types of hydrangeas based on the blooms:

http://hydrangeashydrangeas.com/identify.html

You can prune to the ground the dried out stems if you see no leaf out by mid-May or late-May at the latest. Or scrape the cambium layer with your nails to see if you detect green or not. Or prune it in small 1/2" increments from the top downwards until you get all the way down or until you hit green. The flower buds developed in July-August will be invisible and will be located at the end of the stems. Because of this, prune carefully (probably better/safer for the flower buds not to prune on or after July).

Here is a pic

Are all hydrangeas like that? Meaning having to do extra in the winter to keep them nice and healthy.. Are there any (pink) varieties that do well in my zone 5? We did not have a bad winter, it was pretty mild compared to the past years, debating weather to keep them or not, I could replace them with something less needy.

I would read up on the different types of hydrangeas. There are hardier types for your zone but you won't get the same vivid colors as the macrophylla group. (no blues, purples, dark pink, and a kaleidoscope of color such as Pistachio and Harlequin).

Paniculata types bloom on new wood so you an prune them back in spring without hurting any potential blooms. Some do age to a pinkish color. They go from green to white blooms as they mature and fade to brown or pink.

Oakleaf hydrangeas get very elongated white bloom heads - not sure how good they would be for your area - check with your local gardens/gardeners.

Roxana, I'm not sure how far you are into zone 5. I'm in the hills of PA in my own little micro climate 5-6. I'll attach a few winter pics of hydrangeas. Since I love hydrangeas I would say give you plant another year before you give up on it. I do not protect my hydrangeas in the winter. Not all hydrangeas are hardy to zone 5. Since you are unsure of your variety you can not look it up. In the winter it is impossible to tell which stalks will survive late spring frosts.
Someone else mentioned not trimming until mid-late May. I agree with that. You can't fix what has already been done. You can do better next year. The trimming that has been done may result in little to no flowers this year. Hydrangeas are really not needy. You will see in one of my pics that the hydrangea has survived with little to no trimming. At some point it is best to get out the useless stalks. But if you don't get to it immediately it's not the end of the world.

I always recommend fertilizing with a bloom stimulating water soluble fertilizer.

I use Jack's 10-30-20. I don't work for them I just like the results I get.

Don't give up.

Roxana, I also recommend you look at some of the hardier types of Hydrangeas. You can get good blooms in the summer from reblooming types of H. macrophylla, but you may not get the spring blooms most years without winter protection. Not all H. macrophyllas are reblooming, and if those get killed back you won't get any blooms that year. I do have a few types of reblooming H. macrophyllas. They will only be pink with alkaline soil - otherwise purple or blue.

I also grow H. arborescens, which will be perfectly hardy for you (to zone 3). Mine (Annabelle) is white (with some chartreuse in the early and late blooms) but there are some kinds of H. arborescens with pink blossoms. I haven't seen them, but some folks seem to not be wild about the shade of pink to their blooms, so see them in person to see if you like them.

You might like the H. paniculatas, also fully hardy for you, which usually start light green, then turn white, and end some shade of pink. Different varieties spend different amounts of time in each color phase, and the pink shade at season's end varies also. I really like my Quickfire which is white from late June to late July, and then slowly shifts to pink and ends with the nice deep pink for September and October. Not all H. paniculatas have as long in the pink phase, and not all are as nice a shade of pink IMO. In the post asking about Pinky Winky and Quickfire, I posted photos of both at various points in their color phase, but here is the color of QF for most of the fall. It is larger than most H. macrophyllas, at 6' in height and width.

I will definitely give them another try, over the weekend I visited a friend and saw her hydrangeas, they were prunned like mine and she also had green leaves coming out from the root area, hopefully this is just the type of hydrangea I have :) Thank you for your help everyone! I will try and post some update in the summer.