What's the frost free date in your area?

Late frosts are notorious for zapping Macro hydrangea buds.

Middle of May. I'll be watching the weather like a hawk now that the protection is removed. Extended forecast is showing nothing below 40 at night for the next week.

I wouldn't worry about frosts :-) It takes more than a frosty night to bother hydrangea buds. I never protect any of my macs (no need to in my climate) and they experience many frosty nights even well into spring and never blink! Late freezes are another matter....temps that drop into the 20's or lower are what you need to guard against.

I actually reconfigured the wooden stakes to form a pyramid over the shrubs. If they forecast nighttime temps near freezing i'm going to toss some frost blankets over them. I want my blue flowers!!!

Good for you!

I'm a little bummed about the other Nantucket Blue that I planted in Sept 2018. I have very little budding on old growth. There's new growth at the base though. Fingers crossed it does OK. I'm wondering if I planted it too late in the season in 2018 and didn't have a chance to get properly established for winter? I think it was in the ground for only a couple weeks before a frost came through and started dormancy..... Just trying to learn from possible mistakes.

Gosh Billy. The last 2 pics......how are the canes ? They look uber wet if not ~black wet~...

We had a mild/wet winter here this season. When I removed my winter coverings about 45 days ago or so, some of the thinner canes were MUSH due to the wet mild winter.

Yep same with my winter. Was very mild and got tons of rain. Most of the canes on the Nantucket Blue that I planted in Sept 2018 were mush when I removed the protection. All the previous growth appears to be a loss so i'm not expecting it to be a good looking shrub this year. The good news is there's a ton of new growth at the base. I'm going to let mother nature do its thing and hopefully next growing season it will look better. My theory is when I planted it, it was a very small/young shrub with extremely thin canes. That coupled with the fact I planted it right before fall, it didn't have enough time to get acclimated. My biggest lesson learned is I think I need to throw a tarp over the protection next year to minimize the amount of water that gets into the cage.

Tarp won't let it breath.....

I undid my overwintering early-mid february as I knew how mild and wet the winter was

I noticed you said you stated around Nov. Seems awfully early though Did it ever go dormant ? Those black canes don't look good....it's a waiting game, but I tend to wait till the 1st hard freeze instead of trying to keep it warm and cuddly and awake all winter.

Nov for my area, plants are dormant (all leaves are off the plants). We had a couple frosts come through before I winterized. No leaves were on the plant when I winterized. I wouldn't tarp the whole thing. Just over the top to minimize water soaking the inside as much. Sides would be chicken wire cage so it would breathe from the sides. Yea I'm thinking the current canes are complete loss. I'll let the new growth from the base grow and see how things go this growing season.

My MIL's mophead hydrangea in NH would be dormant in November. Down here, they loose leaves in December or January or never (but the 'never' is limited to mild years & only the oakleaf hydrangeas on my protected locations). For some reason though, those 'never' years are happening a lot. Probably the last 4-5 years in a row, the oakleaf hydrangeas on the back of my property have never lost their leaves until leaf out starts in March. But the single, lone oakleaf in front of the house likes to go dormant in December, always, like the mopheads.

Heh, depending on errr...global warming or not, I might even skip over-wintering next year. I'm thinking this may be the new NORM. Instead of fretting about whether it was too cold and windy, I was concerned it was too mild and wet. And when I pulled back the overwinter, to have the smaller canes be mush, it proved my concerns. Maybe it's time to just let dwarnisim of the fittest survive.

Luis,

There's an oakleaf I drive by a couple times a week. Same thing. Didn't drop leaves till about March.

That's awesome. Good for you !

Congratulations! Do you get blue, purple, pink or mixed colored flowers from that shrub?

Nice job Billy

Luis,

My soil is about around 5-5.5 ph so I get a nice shade of blue. This is from last summer. Has a really nice shade of blue.

How do you protect them out of curiosity? I've never done this before.

What you need:

1. Wooden stakes that are at least 4 feet tall (Home Depot/Lowes should have them
2. Chicken wire fence and or burlap
3. staple gun or zip ties
4. hammer
5. leaves and or hay. I used hay this past winter and got good results. Leaves should work but I think you have to crush them up/mulch them first to be effective.

Take your wooden stakes and hammer them into the ground around your shrub. Make sure to be a couple inches away from the branches. You want to make sure the branches don't rub against the chicken wire/burlap. If using burlap, wrap it around the stakes so you form a cage and staple it to the stakes. If using chicken fence, use zip ties. Fill with leaves and or hay.

It is hard to explain how thick the protection should look with leaves. Because they leave a lot of air, they can fail to protect if you do not pack them ultra tight and then add more in January to compensate for settling. I tried hay but it was messy. I tried mulch instead of hay and am leaning towards using that from now on.

Good for you! My friend has several endless summers here in Mich, does not winter protect and they very sparsely bloom. A lot of work for our climate.

Winterizing isn't that bad. The cleanup in the spring is what is a PAIN!

When you have Macs 5’x 7 ‘ ...have fun

Isn't there a cardboard flattening technique for when they get that big? I'm a little fuzzy on how you actually go about doing it.... I have a couple years before I get to that point....

Its looking really good right now! For some reason Houzz picture attachments aren't working. I'll try later.

Hopefully this posts

I am looooooving the color I'm getting out of the LD series. Rhytmic Blue and Rave. All have bloomed up purple for me. Can't complain. My fave. mac color and I wasn't expecting or trying to make them purple