Northeast Gardening: Spring Report Card, 1 by Noreaster

Noreaster wrote:
By far my biggest disappointment this year is my macrophylla hydrangea, Merritt's Supreme. I planted it in '06 and winter protected it with a cage of leaves. Last year it was huge and full and I had something like 18 gorgeous deep purple blooms. It was probably close to four feet across and high. Because I lost some branches under the weight of the wet leaves in the Spring, I decided to build a styrofoam box to put over it this past winter. I thought it was looking great when I gradually removed the box this Spring, and I kept it covered when there was very cold temps or frost/freeze warnings. I have a flush of new growth from the top bud or two buds on every single cane, including some flowers that I can see starting to form. And I have about six sprigs of new growth coming up from the ground. The problem is that every single bud between the top of the plant and the ground is either dead, gone, or green, but stalled out. There are green buds that have not changed or grown one iota in about six weeks now, so something is seriously wrong and I don't know what. It's going to look so bad this year, with green at the top and the bottom, and several feet of bare branches in between. Does anyone know what could possibly have gone wrong? It makes no sense to me that the top buds survived and the lower ones did not...I thought just the opposite was more likely. Where do I go from here with this thing...is it ever going to look normal again?

Here is one of the stalled buds...looks alive, right?