New to the forum with hydrangeas that aren't budding

[SueB53]

Hi everyone --

I'm new to the forum and in love with hydrangeas .... we
have several varieties all through our small but full front
and back gardens. But I've run into a problem with a
number of Cityline hydrangeas I planted in the front
and back last summer .... they're coming back this year
with nice healthy leaves, but not one of them is showing
any signs of budding. And yet four of the Citylines that
I had in container pots and stored in our garage over the
winter have all produced nice healthy buds. I can't figure
out why the ones in the pots are budding and the ones
in the ground aren't. (The Cityline hydrangeas in my next-
door neighbor's garden are also budding very happily.)

My question is this .... last year I pruned the mophead
blossoms off once they were spent in order to encourage
new buds to grow, on the advice of one of the guys at my
garden center, and I'm wondering if I now prune the top
set of leaves off of each of my Cityline hydrangeas in the
garden, will that help budding to start to occur?

It's wonderful to find a forum like this, and I'm open to anything
any of you can do to help me.

Sue

[luis_pr]

The Cityline Series was bred in Germany to produce a short plant with strong stems. It is advertised to be cold hardy to Zone 5 (around -20 degrees C). Since it is not remontant, it only develops flower buds starting in July-August; the buds will then bloom in Spring 2011. You can [u]deahead[/u] the blooms at any time without affecting bloomage in Spring 2011 but, if you need to prune the stems, you should [u]prune by the end of June[/u] to make sure that pruning will not affect the Spring 2011 bloomage. Pruning will not promote bud start in these hydrangeas but it can in remontant ones like the Endless Summer Series.