AnimalBabe
Full Member
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:34 pm
Location: Northern Virginia

Dead looking stems on hydrangea..root rot??

Hi everyone, I have had a mophead hydrangea planted on the side of our house for three years now. It looked good the second year (it had not bloomed much the first year) and this year it looks really bad. It started off ok, but then I noticed only the stems on one side were really forming mop heads and those stems got very heavy and are basically all laying on the grass now. The other side hasn't bloomed much (this is the side with least sun). Towards the back, the side planted right next to the concrete wall of our house, looks very sparse, and you can see into the plant so to speak, and many of the branches look woody and have spots on them. Now leaves are developing spots as well.

I don't know if this plant is receiving enough light..I would say it gets partial sun, mainly in the morning/early afternoon. Should I move this plant to a better location? I read something once about not planting certain types of plants along a concrete wall..could this be the culprit? How would I know if it has root rot?

I will post some pictures.

Any suggestions/help would be very much appreciated! Thank you.

AnimalBabe
Full Member
Posts: 50
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:34 pm
Location: Northern Virginia

Actually, I'm not sure how to post pics. If anyone can advise me on this I would be happy to try to upload some.

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mtmickey
Senior Member
Posts: 212
Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:18 pm
Location: Ronan, MT

Pictures must first be hosted at an online site, like flickr, photobucket, picasaweb, etc...

Here are instructions for posting pics
[url]https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3724[/url]

luis_pr
Greener Thumb
Posts: 824
Joined: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:31 am
Location: Hurst, TX USA Zone 7b/8a

"those stems got very heavy and are basically all laying on the grass now" - that is what happens with new stems that carry large blooms. A well known example is Annabelle, a hydrangea thatproduces large white blooms, whose stems cannot support them well if they get wet (like when it rains) for the first few years.

Hard to tell what the spots on the branches are. A picture might help since usually the problem is in the leaves and not on the stems. If you cannot post pictures, take a sample of a branch with leaves in a transp[arent sealed plastic bag to a local nursery or to an Agric Extension Service.

The most common fungal infection in hydrangeas is powdery mildew.



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