The answer may lie in the pruning Baxter. When do you prune it? Hydrangeas need a tidy up in about March or April, depending on where you live. Take out any dead wood and really old growth that's crowding the middle, and cut off the dead flower heads to a good fat bud and the bush should flower OK for you. It flowers on growth made last year, so if you prune hard you're cutting off the twigs that would have flowered later. Keeping the dead flower heads on over winter helps protect the buds lower down from frost.

If you cut it back last summer or autumn you may have cut off this year's flowers already. If you leave it alone this year you should have flowers for summer 2012.

This winter's frost may also have killed the flower buds, too, even the lower ones.