Garden

Hydrangea bushes that won’t fully bloom

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Credit: Andres Rueda

Q: I have a couple of hydrangea bushes in my yard. Year-after-year, it starts to bloom and then it never completely finishes – it is lacking the blooms in the middle of the flower.

Can you please help me determine what the cause could be? I live in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

Thank you and looking forward to your response.

The Hydrangea macrophylla cv. in question could be a “lace cap”, instead of a “mop head’ (hortensia). Lace caps usually have a ring of sterile flowers (showy) surrounding the centre of small fertile flowers. Mop heads consist entirely of sterile flowers.

Some examples of blue flowering lace caps are Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Bluewave’, as opposed to a mop head, such as Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Nikko Blue’.