I have a blue hydrangea out front, it bloomed.
I have 2 hydrangeas on the side of the house, one pink, one blue,
they both didn't bloom! Last year they did. Why?

I feed them miracle grow once/month.
I must need bone meal or something else to help them for next year.

Also, tell me how far down and WHEN do I prune them back?
My brother told me to leave the ones with blooms dying down on the wood alone ...they were very long
stalks in the spring ...I don't know. I didn't do something right.

Please help. S.O.S.

Did you cut them back last fall after they died back for winter??

A lot of them only bloom on old wood so if you pruned them they will have no flowers, or if you live in a cold area they can die back to the ground.

My hydrangeas bloom on old wood and I do not trim after seeing buds develop early summer.
This Spring had a surprise late freeze 2 days and killed all buds. Never had that before in 15 years. I will pay more attention to Spring temps now and cover them.

In the spring when they are leafing out but you can still see the stems well, trim for shape & to remove the then obvious dead spots.

The front of this shrub was trimmed, the back left to its' own devices, to show the difference a good shaping/pruning can make. The naked length of stem & dead bits are distracting & unnecessary. After you do it a few times, you'll get the hang of it.

If your hydrangeas are the kind that bloom on "old wood" that means they will bloom next year on the growth that they put on this year. So DON'T prune the ones that didn't bloom. Not at all, until they bloom again. Then just prune off the spent blooms when they finish and turn brown.

The most common reason for hydrangeas not blooming is pruning too late, so stems that were getting ready to bloom were cut off. Or, as Pandora said, if they freeze back in the spring, that can also "prune" the new growth where the blooms would be.

So the explanation of why the one in front bloomed and the ones on the side of your house didn't might be as simple as temperature. If it stays warmer at night on cold nights out front (is it the south side of the house?) then that hydrangea may have been protected enough but the others weren't.

Keep a "weather eye" on the temperatures in spring when the buds are coming along, and cover those bushes on the side of the house with something like an old sheet or blanket if a late frost threatens. (don't use plastic! It doesn't help)

Yes, that's why one would wait until they leaf-out in the spring. There's no reason to look at dead material sticking up and out between the pretty blooms. When it's obvious where the most vigorous nodes are on each branch, any puny ones beyond it can be removed, so the tip of each branch ends in gorgeous flowers.

Unless a Hydrangea is planted where it doesn't have enough room, they don't require heavy pruning at all. Certainly not enough pruning that all of the nodes that are prepared to bloom would be removed.

Anita. One thing I'm wondering about is whether these were only planted last year because one was pink and one was blue. That suggested to me that they were newly purchased otherwise the colours would have been closer as they adapted to the soil pH. It sounds like they were not pruned last year since Anita's brother said leave them alone. In that case I wonder if they are growing in a zone too cold for them as Elaine suggested. It would help if we knew where they were growing and what their names are. The blue and pink ones are typically not as hardy as others.