Pics or it didn't happen! Haha. In all seriousness...that's amazing!

I think this is a good year for hydrangeas and other plants as my roses are doing the best ever now.

That’s so crazy because my Endless Summers, which I faithfully winter protect every year, have maybe a couple broccoli on each. I cage them and stuff them with leaves, but my mower broke while I was mulching leaves and apparently the non-mulched leaves left too much space around the canes. I hate the amount of work it takes to have decent blooms.

Last year when I took off the winter projection they had tons of green branches forming already. They were beautiful. This year, maybe a couple of green buds near the bottom. Picture from last year.

Sydney, I find it easier to winter protect with either hay or mulch as opposed to using leaves. But hay is messy so I prefer mulch and reuse it in the Spring elsewhere in the garden. If winter protection does not help in one year, I refer to notes/digital pictures taken in the Fall to determine what failed and what changes to make.

Make sure you place plenty of protection material (mulch, hay, leaves, etc) in between the end of the stems and the outside cold world. The more inches, the better. A few inches may not protect much for example unless you are trying to protect from a drop to the mid or upper 20s.

It is probably a good idea to gather before/after winter protection information so you can evaluate the results (did it not help; did it help a little and where; did it help a lot) and tweak things (need to use more mulch/leaves next year? expand the cage to make it wider? use a new cage to protect taller stems?). So determine whatever info can help you make improvements: did you use mulch, hay, leaves, etc; how wide was cage; how wide was the hydrangea and its widest stems; how much protection did the widest stems get (example: there were 3 inches of mulch in between the end of the widest stem and the cage; how tall was the cage; how much did you fill the cage; how tall were the tallest stems; how much protection did the tallest stems get (example: there were 3" in between the ends of the stems and the top of the mulch). Evaluate where the plant had blooms or did not have blooms. If the top of the plant did not produce blooms but the sides had blooms, it suggests that it did not get enough mulch and should add mulch to a bigger height. Remember that stems may grow wider and taller this year so take that into consideration in the Fall when putting the cage and getting protection material. If the plant gets too big for chicken wire cages, consider winter protecting using a technique that bends pliable stems flat down and then you throw winter protection on top.

Luis_pr, your joke made me chuckle! Very amusing indeed.

Ok Luis, no Winter protection. Last yr.....thisyr

One more

hyed..lucky you..enjoy..next year could be a bust..

This has been a crazy good year for the hydrangeas in my yard. A couple that had not bloomed in three or four years have a few blooms while those that have bloomed in the past are outdoing themselves this year. We didn't get a lot of deep freezes this past winter, which may have helped. All the hydrangeas in my neighbors' yards are looking good too. I've been intentional about adding blueing agent.