What season are you growing these Calibrachoa hybrids in? Are your hanging baskets covered by a roof or any other structure? Etc, it is possible but unfortunately they just aren't weather proof for most garden situations, even containers. No matter where you live. They dont like to be crowded by other plants as air circulation is of life threatening importance because of the plethora of moulds and fungus and root pathogens they are susceptible to. So cannot even be used in mixed plantings, surely they will die as the other plants cannot survive without regular water. Those marketing these plants have been changing the goal posts for consumers ever since these things first appeared. The perfect, easy, self cleaning, heat loving garden plant tough as boots, is suddenly now only for containers with complete protection, perfect PH, in temperate climates with no rain and clear blue skies indefinitely and vitally timed applications of chemical ..........of course consumers have been buying them by the "millions" because of the hype and are having disastrous results. It's fraud plain and simple. We wouldn't buy fruit that you couldn't eat and it's in fact illegal to sell fruit in many countries that wont ripen once picked or is an unsatisfactory cultivar. Consumers don't seem to get the same protection with plants and producers can say anything. What is interesting is to read the sites on the net for producers, mostly PDF files, they explain how to grow on the plugs to sell to retailers. It's not easy! Not at all. Some even say as much. They are susceptible to almost every pathogen known to infect plants in production. Growers have to rely heavily on chemical solutions many which are not (even if they were environmentally friendly) available to home growers. They aren't however environmentally friendly and it's irresponsible to create a demand for their usage. Even if we all were sloshing nasty chemicals all over the place the plants are again critically sensitive to dosage, type and timing of application. Without a doubt it is true that the production of bedding plants generally are a nightmare of chemical pollution already. Treated as throw away plants after and the environmental footprint left behind is completely unacceptable. Without diminishing your success you might just have benefited from recent heavy or specific grower applications of chemicals, hormones etc long enough to get some results in a very protected site. I've even resorted to umbrellas to keep them dry, they just cannot take average normal wet conditions, whether from passing rain or watering. Establishing them in the ground is impossible. I've had only very limited success using almost pure acidic sand. Whatever you do even in containers, with the right PH If you plant three two will die almost immediately. One might or might not persist but never ever the "all Spring and Summer long" rubbish they tell consumers. Here's the thing, these are sold and bred as bedding and container plants, the things you stick in anywhere in full sun for instant colour that flower themselves to death with minimal care. However they are in fact a highly specialised plant to grow, best suited for green house conditions, however the effort for such a short lived woody plant makes that not terribly rewarding either. They hate disturbance as well so transplanting is almost impossible even from pot to container. These are hybrids of many species of Calibrachoa (lovely name) and as such one would expect some kind of almost manic hybrid vigour. Unfortunately it seems the aggregate of the species is even more difficult than the individual species to grow as a result of all this breeder effort.

Yes Floral_uk is right. Could be the South for example which requires a completely different strategy. If I sowed seed where I lived I would battle to get any flowers at all as they only flower in their second season. So you need to start seedlings the year before plant them out Autumn then they will flower in Spring early summer the following year. As we don't have a suitable cool enough summer to start them off I could only sow in winter and they would die when Spring arrived because of the heat and humidity. If I had a cool green house with fans, air-con and a mister I could of course but thats an awful lot of trouble for what is an annual bedding plant in our "zone". So Im lucky the Dutch do it for me. I tried foxgloves (grown in Japan) for the first time this year but they appeared on the market too late to work, only now sending up miserable flower spikes which is too late. Foxgloves have the same growth, "biannual" as Campanula medium. If that helps you Amanda. They don't live much beyond two years but in suitable climates will happily self seed. I just thought I should say that this year we had quite a stable cool dry winter season and I've had Campanula medium, the same plants I bought in bud last year in early December "Autumn" flowering and performing stunningly well for more than four months! They very slowly open their buds, keeping the open flowers for ages and ages in mint condition, well well after all the buds have opened. Winter is our dry season so watering is required, not excessively, just to keep moist. I think the lack of rain actually is a big plus for the longevity of the flowers and the fact I planted in shady conditions. Our humidity is never much bellow 60% even in the dry season. We are in our fifth month and the temps have gone into 26-28%C, this week 30-31%C with 80-90% humidity and still there are flowers! It's truly remarkable. Much smaller flowers but the plants haven't wilted yet. Sure they will and very soon, though. What I did after three months and a half of solid performance was remove all the spent flowers that had partially formed green leafy seed capsules, this made them produce many smaller new buds, the ones still flowering now. I would love to get the crisp white ones next year but I haven't seen them here at all. Maybe "Bells of Holland" the shorter variety only come in pink and purple. Highly recommended as a winter annual or bedding plant in sub-tropical climates if you can buy them already established, in full bud. Choose the plants where the buds are not open, just a sprinkle of the larger top buds open. Our temps don't fall much bellow 10- 15% in winter and not much higher than 20-23 %C so for Canterbury bells it's like one long mild late Spring early summer. For Southern gardens in the USA including parts of Florida, right up to Miami with no frost, winter is the time to enjoy! Plant producers and buyers for retail take note. They outperform even things like busy tizzies and bedding begonias. I planted in the shade with only an hour or so of passing sun a day.

Donna JJ, thanks for the info. mine bloomed for the first time yesterday and today. Still not sure which one it is. The first bloom was a pretty pink with a burgundy eye, about dinner plate size, maybe a little smaller and solid pink color. Today a new bud opened on the same stem, and it has the same burgundy eye, but the color is almost white, with a bit of pink tinge and the plant is about 3 feet on one stem growing out of the ground and the other one is about 4 feet. Which one do you think it is?

H. quercifolia is somewhat challenging plant for z5. The most of the problems will occur in a first few years. Once established it will be relatively trouble free plant, though not a reliable bloomer. After all it's a z7-8 (NC, GA) native plant. First, it need 2-3 years in ground to become fully established. Being technically root hardy to z5 it still need very thick layer of mulch and burlap wraping in a first couple of winters. Spring/early summer planting is highly recommended for z5-6. Second, of all hydrangeas, young oakleaves are the most succeptible to root rot while still can't stand drought. Therefore, one have to find PROPER watering regimen to satisfy this requirement. Again, thick layer of mulch could be handy. Third, it blooms on old wood and you are back to square one for winter protection as you would be with the most of macrophyllas. Winter protection ala 'hayseedman' for quercifolias will be not only questionable due to the rangy pattern of growth, but most likely will be impossible for the most of them due to their sizes, assuming they'll not die back every other year. 'Alice' in particular, is one of the largest h.q. and could easily reach 8x8' in just 3 years and 12x12' in 5 years if no dieback. IMO, dwarf cultivars, such as Pee Wee or Sike's Dwarf (both look identical to me anyway) are the only quercifolias that could be/should be attempted to grow in solid z5 on condition that grower is determined and will put reasonable effort to protect them. Fourth, indeed, fall foliage of oakleaves is a site to behold. However, in order to develop fall color it should be grown in a considerable sun, say 3-4 hours, and here you'll have another contradiction. Location with 3-4 hours of tentatively morning sun in a summer most likely will become a 6-8-10 hours of sun in a winter and such exposure most definitely will dry flower buds or even the whole branches by the spring, thus you'll have a huge non-blooming plant in a best case scenario. Sorry for the doom and gloom, but that is how I see it. Re: 'Blue Billow'. It wasn't me who touted it, but Hayseedman reported that it blooms RELIABLY for him in z6 WITHOUT any protection. In my z6b garden I don't protect any hydrangeas except trying to chose location wisely, and indeed B.Billow bloomed for me the last three years on a row, including very cold winter of 2003/04.