What do they look like in winter?

[Gypsyrose7]

Hello,
New to the forum so forgive me if this had been addressed.
Also new to Hydrangeas. Just bought a house last winter (zone 6, winters can be bitter). The house belonged to an elderly couple, so there hadn't been any upkeep in the yard for a while.
There was a mass of dead looking brown sticks that I soon found out was a hydrangea. This summer is filled out beatifully and bloomed (sparingly)My question is:
Do they look dead every winter? Or had this one been neglected?
I'm trying to plan landscaping for the front of the house and would love to put some hydrangeas there but I'm not sure how to hide the "dead stick" look (if indeed they do look like that).
Thanks for any help!

[Grey]

Yup, they look dead all winter.

What I am doing with some of my plants that need protecting, or some that just look like a stack of dead twigs in winter, is I am taking my plant stakes and building a simple teepee around them. Then if I am wrapping it for protection purposes, I string some white lights around it, followed by a wrapping of burlap (you can get it for $2/yard at WalMart) and holding it in place with a couple of safety pins.

They can look good all winter that way - either as a burlap wrapping with a ribbon on top for the season (red for Christmas or blue for Hannukkah, light green for early Spring, etc).

I use the lights on some of the grasses I brought up with me from Florida. It's taken nearly all season for them to fill out half as much as they had been before they got bit so badly.