What's Wrong With My Hydrangeas? Grumpy Explains

About This Episode

A reader has a major problem with their hydrangeas. Plus, why Grumpy loves Lantana.

Question Of The Week

"My hydrangeas will not leaf out on the old wood. All new growth comes from the bottom. Is this because we had a warm spell in early spring, followed by a sudden freeze?"

Grumpy's response: Yes, exactamundo. You are correct. This is what happens when you get those warm spells, and it's towards the end of winter. And it may stay mild for a week or 10 days, and then the plants get fooled. They start breaking dormancy. Sap starts running to the top. You might even see green buds coming out. And then you get this Arctic blast, and because the plants are no longer in dormancy, the part of the plants above ground gets killed. That doesn't mean it has killed the roots, but everything above ground that was exposed to the freezing air is dead. So it's not your fault. There's nothing you can do to prevent this, so don't feel guilty. It happens every year to lots of people.

Your plant will grow back from the roots and eventually look like it did before. So just cut off all the dead stuff. One way that you can get around this problem is if you would plant a re-blooming type. These are types like the Endless Summers. And what they do is they bloom on both last year's growth and the new year's growth. So even if a freeze kills them to the ground and you cut off all the dead branches, they will still sprout new branches that are gonna bloom that very same year.

Plant Of The Week

Lantana

Our plant of the week is going to be one called lantana, which I think is a great annual for most people for continuous color throughout the summer. It's also a tender perennial in zones 8 and farther South. It will come back. In colder areas, it acts just like an annual. But from the time you put it in in the springtime to the time you get a hard freeze in the fall, it's going to bloom. So I'm going to tell you some reasons why I think this is such a great plant for the average person who doesn't want to fool around with their plants all the time and maybe is just a beginner.

1. It has non stop color from spring until fall, and it's great whether you mass it in a flowerbed or you grow it in container.
2. It has lots of colors. You can get it in yellow, orange, red, pink, white, and bicolors. So there's a color for you.
3. It loves the heat, which of course, we love that fact down in the South. No matter how hot it gets, it won't stop blooming.
4. It takes full sun, and it tolerates drought, so you don't have to be out there, even in the hottest days of summer, soaking it down every day.
5. Butterflies love lantana. It is probably one of the top three plants for butterflies that there are, so it's a great pollinator plant.
6. Deer hate lantana. I've gone through neighborhoods where people had no flowers. They couldn't plant anything. The only flower that they had in the whole neighborhood was lantana because deer don't like the way lantana smells.
   

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 30 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.