My poor Nikko Blue hydrangea started off with strong, beautiful blue flowers. We went away for about a week, and someone else took care of our pets/plants, but didn't water it. She did say it rained twice while we were away. Anyway, now it's turned a bit pink (not concerned - I understand alkaline/acidic soil will do this), but most of the flower heads have browned somewhat. Two heads are still blue. The leaves are still a nice green. I don't know if I'm supposed to deadhead, or what. I don't even know if this is a normal process for the nikko blue. When growing up we had a hydrangea (may be endless summer?) and it never seemed to fade/brown until fall. May be I just don't remember right.

Questions:
1. Is this 'normal'? or did my caretaker kill it by not watering
2. Do I deadhead the fading/brownish flowers? If so, how?

Thanks all!
Mary

Whoops! Meant to put this in plants & flowers.
<img border="0" alt="[perplexed]" title="" src="graemlins/confused.gif" />

HI MARY hydrangeas love shade and water heres a few links that should help you ok.
http://www.greenhousebutterflies.com/hydrangea.htm
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/Hydrangea.htm

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/pruningroses.htm

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:www.agnr.umd.edu/users/cmrec/art4.htm

good luck with your hydrangea. your friend in gardening.mike57

Hi Mike! Thanks for the links...I read through all that info, and still not sure if my hydrangea is doing something normal (not much normal goes on around this house). I've been watching how much sun it gets yesterday and today and it just gets about an hour or 2 around 5pm. I'll have to post some pics.

I don't understand this. I have 2 blue ones that are in almost total shade and they do fine. My mother has one just like it in full sun that is blooming like crazy. She's had it 3 years and this is the first year it's done well. Go figure. The info says part shade but her's is in full sun. I cut my blooms as they start fading, unless of course, I cut them to bring in or dry. Post us a picture.

Here we go - I finally remembered to take a picture. I'd say it's in full shade, even though it might get an hour or 2 of sun around 5-6pm. The flowers are too heavy for the stalks, and most of them are practically laying down. I've never had/seen a baby hydrangea, so may be this is all normal, I dunno. The leaves are all a good green, so I know it's not dying, I guess the flowers just fade like this normally. I noticed some other much more mature bushes in my town, and most still have lots of blue clusters on it. May be as it gets older?


Dont mind my hose...that's my feeble attempt at making a soaker hose that hasn't been buried yet.

mine is in part sun but still gets a good deal of sun! Its beautiful but If I dont water it 2 times a day it does just what you were saying about the blooms drooping and falling on the floor. I water it at the roots 2 times a day and this seems to solve that problem!

hmmm and here I thought I was overwatering! I leave the hose on 'soaker' and stand there for about 5 minutes or so...but the soil does drain pretty quickly there. I try not to water at night, because I think I've read it invites disease - but if it's working for you, then may be it'll work for me too! I'll give it a shot. I thought maybe it was getting leggy because of the lack of sun it gets..hoping I dont need to move it to a part sun area! I'll keep you posted

So today I watered really heavy, right? I didn't expect any change in a day. Well, I noticed tonight that it went from pinkish to like purplish-dark bluish. They were still laying on the ground. I picked one up to take a pic (that came out blurry of course), and noticed the part that was laying on the ground is a light GREEN!! Do I have some kind of alien variety here or what? I'll try to get pics of the green tomorrow...if it's still green by then!

I promise ya I haven't had anything to drink!