Hydrangea arborescense -- "invincibelle 2" -- comes in whites and pinks and stays shorter than 5 feet. One variety is less than 2 feet tall. (Submitted photo)

Q: My hydrangea failed to bloom again this year. What am I doing wrong? — Linda from Canfield

A: The biggest challenge with these plants is that gardeners want to plant and grow the difficult varieties, ignoring the ones that will grow and bloom beautifully here in the Mahoning Valley.

There are options to improve your chance with the ones you are growing, but there are many other types of hydrangeas that will bloom without all of the extra time and effort.

Most gardeners want to buy and plant the beautiful florist-type hydrangeas. The stunning blues and striking pinks are just too beautiful not to try. These hydrangeas are referred to as bigleaf hydrangeas (H. macrophylla). Many of these plants are hardy to Zone 6 and higher, meaning they grow best along the river in southern Ohio and in the Carolinas.

But even with this limitation, you can grow many cultivars of this hydrangea and get blooms every year.

To do this, you need either luck or good planning. The luck comes into play when you plant a bigleaf hydrangea in the perfect area, not understanding why it did so well. The planning is selecting the perfect site with nearly perfect soil conditions, morning sun and afternoon shade, keeping plants mulched to keep plants cool and moist, and not overfertilizing with nitrogen fertilizer.

Rather than do all of that work, think about the possibilities for planting other types of hydrangeas.

1. Hydrangea serrata — This type of hydrangea will have beautiful blue and pink blooms just like the macrophylla hydrangeas. The difference is that H. serrata are more cold tolerant and emerge from dormancy after macrophylla.

2. Hydrangea arborescens — This type comes in whites and pinks and stay below 5 feet tall. There is one tiny one that stays less than 2 feet tall. Blooms start in June and will fade to a lime green color in late summer. Most can be cut very short at the end of the season and still bloom next year.

3. Hydrangea quercifolia — This is an oakleaf hydrangea that has large, beautiful white blooms starting in June, with foliage that turns to orange, bronze or purplish red in fall.

4. Hydrangea paniculata — These are the large shrubs that start to bloom around Aug. 1 each year. More and more cultivars turn to pinks and even reds as the blooms age. Besides large shrubs, there are many – versions at 4 feet and under.

So head to your local garden center to plant a new kind of hydrangea this fall. Don’t let the latin names scare you. I’ve made a simple chart to help even the newest gardener understand the species and cultivars.

To learn more about the best hydrangeas to grow in our area, download my chart from http://go.osu.edu/hydrangeas.

• Barrett is the Ohio State University Extension educator for agriculture and natural resources in Mahoning County. Call the office hotline at 330-533-5538 from 9 a.m. to noon Mondays and Thursdays to submit questions.