where are you ... what zone ... is a freeze possible??? .. east coast alone.. is a bit vague ....

as you have learned.. the whims of ma nature are variable ... or so ive been told... lol ...

for your sake.. i hope you finally win this year ...

ken

Oh, looks like your plant is waking up. Those are leaf buds. When the flower buds open, they will resemble small broccoli heads. You normally see the broccoli after the leaf out process.

But be on the look out for late frosts now! These can kill the leaves, the leaf buds and even the flower buds... and leave you with a year that has few or no blooms. Monitor the weather maybe until about two weeks after your average date of last frost. If you do not know when this is, do an online search using Yahoo, Bing, Google, etc for "average date of last frost for Columbia, South Carolina"; that is just an example so change the city/state.

Some of my hydrangeas started waking up two weeks ago so, I have the weather in my radar now. For small temporary dips below freezing, you can cover the plant. For large dips, consider winter protection so the invisible flower buds near the ends of the stems are protected.

Do not give it any fertilizer at this stage. Better wait until two weeks after leaf out. I normally use leaf out as a way to tell when to start fertilizing many plants in my garden but Spring is early & this winter has been mild... and I have roses, camellias, azaleas, quince already covered in blooms. The trees, so far, appear to be smarter and are still sleeping so, if there is a late frost, it might not hurt them much.

Good luck, Luis

We are in NYC, zone 7b. I can monitor the weather but what should I be looking for and what should I do if a drastic drop in the weather comes? I have some leaves around the base now; should I add more? And thank all of you for your help.

For a drastic drop, well below freezing, you can put chicken wire around the shrub. It should be wider and taller than the hydrangea. Fill it in with mulch (I find mulch works better than filling it with leaves). By doing this, you protect the ends of the stems, which is where the flower buds reside. The more distance from the ends of the stems to the vertical and horizontal ends of the chicken wire, the more protection it gets from the cold. Top It with a cardboard... with rocks to keep the cardboard from blowing away. Add more mulch in mid winter (due to settling) if needed. You can remove the winter protection around two weeks after your average date of last frost. Reuse the mulch elsewhere in the garden in Spring. More info:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/1997280/overwintering-hydrangea-macrophylla-winter-protection#n=104

Northeast has had an extremely mild winter for sure. This recent warm weather we got this past week is screwing up plants thinking it's time to wake up.....

In a zone 7b and with a mild winter, it doesn't surprise me much to see buds developing at this time of year. My winter has been rather ordinary - just one arctic blast and snowstorm - and my macs are already staring to leaf out.

And my Little Honey oakleaf, for the second year in a row, has not dropped any of its leaves and has not taken on any kind of fall or winter color! It is still a bright lime green.

Sounds like what happened to my Pee Wee and Snow Queen Oakleaf Hydrangeas. They stopped losing leaves in the Fall about 5 years ago and now keep them until after the leaf process has started in March. Then they loose the old ones when the new leaves in Spring get larger. Their reds and purples were missing last Fall so the leaves last Fall only turned red with dark greens. Interesting-ly, the other oakleafs did loose their leaves in the Fall.

What kind of hydrangea is it? If it's an Annabelle type, you can hack it to the ground and it will not miss a single beat -- they flower solely on new growth and are vigorous growers where happy. Can't do that with oakleafs and the regular "mopheads", though -- they bloom on old wood. Paniculatas bloom on new wood too, although I'm not sure if you can but back all the way to the ground like you can with the Annabelles. Regardless, I wouldn't worry about leaf buds now -- it's March already tomorrow, stuff is slowly starting to wake up, it's all on their timetable not ours.

:Like I said in my original post; no flowers for three years because of bad pruning choices. so this year I didn't touch it in the fall or spring. Is it safe to prune now? Which branches should be cut?

Lots of choices as you have lots of new growth in a cramped space. Consider transplanting it if it will be getting large and you have room elsewhere. That way, it can reach its estimated size at maturity without you having to prune often. The ideal thing would be to only have to prune dead wood that gets killed by winter. By the way, if you still have it, the plant label has the estimated size at maturity (width, height).

You have foliage coming from last year's stems. You also have new stems growing from the base/crown. Those are usually keepers.

If you see a stem that does not leaf out by mid to late May, you can prune it all the way down.

Stems that cross or that are bent and flop can also be cut all the way down.

If you want to let some sunlight into sections of the bush, you can cut some more branches there all the way down.

Stems that grow too much in relation to others of its own age, they make the plant look weird so some persons like to either cut them all the way down or cut them such that they all have the same size.

You could go on but just remember, hydrangeas usually do not need to be pruned so, if you can, do not worry too much about pruning it. I would be tempted to leave this one alone until late May and theeen evaluate my options.