We have a Hydrangea plant in the front garden. This summer it was beautiful and lush with a lot of blooms. Now that it is winter, it looks terrible!!! Should I dig it up and throw it away or will it return to the beautiful plant this spring? It is really ugly......

That is the way it is suppose to look at this time of year. When cold weather comes, they drop their leaves. Hydrangea's are perennial, meaning they return back to grow and bloom year after year. It will return to normal next spring. Hope this answers your question.
http://gardening.about.com/od/treesshrubs/a/Prune_Hydrangea.htm

$Billy Ray$

Hydrangea Care
Hydrangea plant care is often given a lot in the summer months, when the plant is in full bloom, and then forgotten about in the winter. This is unfortunate, as mid winter is an important time to care for a hydrangea. Proper mid winter hydrangea care will ensure a full, robust plant with lots of flowers for the following growing season.

The first part of hydrangea plant care is pruning. When pruning the plant in the winter, any stems that flowers the previous season should be pruned back. Unflowered stems should not be pruned, as these will provide the flowers for the next year. Any dead stems or weak parts of the plant should also be pruned back at this time.

The most interesting part of hydrangea plant care is the ability to change the color of the blooms, simply by changing the pH level of the soil. If the blooms are blue, adding some lime to decrease the acidity of the soil will change the flowers to pink. Pink blooms can be turned blue by adding aluminum sulfate. Hydrangeas use a lot of water, and should be watered regularly during times of drought.




More information about hydrangea care can be found on the Internet. Local nurseries and garden centers will also be able to provide maintenance tips. Libraries will often times have books featuring hydrangea plant care. Wherever the hydrangea plant care is found, it is important to ensure the validity of the source.

A hydrangea is a deciduous plant, it looses its leaves in the winter. You should not do any pruning on it as most hydrangeas bloom on OLD wood, that is wood produced this past year, and if you prune it, you won't have any blooms next year. Only some of the white hydrangeas like Annabelle bloom on new wood, and they can be cut to the ground, and there are a few new varieties of the blue ones that bloom on new wood, but if your plants have been there a long time it is probable that they are not one of the new types. It should come back next spring and be fine, if there is any dead you can cut it out then.

It is a deciduous plant, that means that it sheds it's leaves in the winter. Let it be until early spring, then you can clean up its shape and fertilize and water it and hopefully it will be just as pretty again when we survive this thing called winter. Right now you could rake up and get rid of dead leaves.