I agree with tsmith, as to amount of direct sunlight an Oakleaf Hydrangea can tolerate. The best blooming / growing cultivars in my garden and throughout the neighborhood, receive full afternoon or all-day sun exposure. Haven't experienced or observed any leaf scorch at all throughout the many years they have been growing. Be sure they receive good drainage, as they absolutely will not tolerate wet feet! Mulch and keep watered for the first couple of years, after the roots become established, you can pretty much ignore them.

I'm not at all sure I'd agree with that :-) Both Vaughn's Lillie and Sikes' Dwarf should be mostly sterile florets - these are unnaturally (IMO) weighted towards the fertile flowers. They look weird........not seen anything quite like it. I assume these are the first flowers of the season? Perhaps they'll grow out of it.....that sometimes happens. If not, I wouldn't hesitate to return it if it were my plant.

I quit the extra protection after a few years, when it had gained more size and stems. I did more of a wrapping on the cage around the shrub, to break the cold wind which blows all the time in winter. I worked at a warehouse at the time, so we often had the saran-wrap type plastic on pallets of boxes. It was clear, tall at about 48" high, and with only one cut to open the pallet, ends overlapped on the cage. I used string over the plastic to hold it up on the shrub cage for winter. Usually took a couple or three strings if cage was tall. I have hay bales, so binder twine was easily available for that. Shrub had lots of shredded oak leaf mulch over the roots, piled into the cage about 5" after wrapping, but not deep enough to cover the sticks. Again, more of a wind break than anything else. I liked that the plastic wrap could let the sunshine get on the sticks. I think plants always need sun, and no cover on cage top to hold in any heat. Nothing I did this wrapping on, sprouted early or died, so I put method down as "successful" in protection. The Oakleaf has done just great without the protection since then. Little or no frozen branch ends, blooms reliably each year. Winters have been VERY cold, warmer, wet like this last one, shrub does fine. Probably the cage and wrap was overkill, but I REALLY wanted that small plant to survive! So I was willing to put in the extra time doing the wraps. Cage was big enough to not have branches rubbing in any wind from the top. At the time I thought Hydrangeas were "delicate" and needed that kind of care. Learned more since then, and only one expensive Japanese Maple gets a cage and wrapping now! More because the DOG finds it irrisistable to chew on when snow is deep. Hydrangeas of all sorts do just fine left alone in winter.

The blooms on Harmony and VL are somewhat similar but VL is more compact so I would choose between those two depending on what size you prefer. Of the three blooms, I prefer the doubles on Snowflake. OH is advertised as hardy in your zone. Make sure the soil drains very well.