Endless trouble with Endless Summer Hydrangeas

14 years ago

This is my second year gardening so I am still very much a novice. However, this year I was bitten by the hydrangea bug so I decided to buy some and try them out.

The first ones I bought were the Endless Summer varieties. I purchased a Twist N Shout, Blushing Bride, and an Original Endless Summer to go on my screened porch. A few weeks later, I saw a darling, Forever and Ever hydrangea at Lowe's and scooped that up as well.

All hydrangeas were doing fairly well until I started noticing some pesky holes in their leaves. I had this same problem on my roses so I bought some Ortho Ecosense 3-in-1 Rose and Flower Care and sprayed it on all of the plants that had been affected.

Simultaneously, I was debating moving my Twist N Shout and Original Endless Summer hydrangeas to a partially sunny shade just outside of my screened in porch. The morning after the great "spray down" with the Ortho Ecosense I placed the Twist N Shout and Original outside to give them a trial run in their new spot. Big Mistake. A few hours later it looked as if someone had scorched these two plants with a blow torch. I was devastated but thought that perhaps removing the spent leaves and cutting back the damage would revive my babies. I even replenished their soil with Miracle Grow Water Control Potting Mix and added some 10-10-10 fertilizer the next weekend.

The Twist N Shout and Original hydrangeas look like they belong in an ICU unit now. They are barely hanging on with a minimal amount of new growth. The Twist N Shout was hit the hardest. It seems that any new growth turns brown and dries up.

The Forever and Ever Hydrangea is fine, but I cut back the dead flowers, fertilized it and the Blushing Bride as well, and it won't rebloom.

What am I doing wrong? Please help me save my hydrangeas. Do I need to put them all in the ground. Right now the Twist N Shout and Original are under the porch because I don't know what to do with them. I want them to live, and I have searched and searched for a problem like mine on the internet, but I can't find one that seems similar. I live in SC, and we are having a heat stroke summer so far this year.

If anyone can help me, I would be eternally or "endlessly" grateful. :)

Yours truly,

Erica

Novice gardener with a not so endless hydrangea

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Comments (4)

miclino
14 years ago
In my limited experience, a few hours of sun should not have killed the plant. Watering well and shading the plant would probably be enough for it to recover. The fertilizer was probably not a good idea when all the plant needed was water. No idea about the original problem though.
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sue36
14 years ago
Water well, move them to shade or dappled sun/shade, if it is a real scorcher put them in the garage for the day, DO NOT FERTILIZE (they come with a ton of it in the pot). Trim off the leaves that are 1/3 or more crispy.

When in pots they can dry out quick, I bet that is what happened. They will likely recover but may not look great this year.

Before spraying with a pest control spray I would find out what was eating them first. Nothing bothers mine, but I do have roses and hibiscus that get totally munched on.
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I was exactly where you are last year. I had bought my hydrangeas blooming, and for a few years in a row they had leaves but no flowers. They were in full sun and I could not water them easily at that location, they were far from the house. So, last spring I have moved them close to the house, where I can water them. They get shade in the morning, and a bit too much sun in the mid day and afternoon. But they are planted under a young birch that will provide shade in a few years. Anyway, last year, after spring transplanting, I watered and fed them and they made one bloom between 3 hydrangeas. They were still stressed from the previous year. This year was to be their last. They all died back during winter. I fertilized them with an organic rose food in the spring (same as wendy above - maybe that's key?), and voila! They bloomed incessantly this summer... amazing season they are having! They are still stressed out by too much mid-day and afternoon sun. I water them every afternoon if they wilt. But, they bloomed! So, my lesson learned is that they need some shade, a lot of water, and fertilizer as well. My soil is sandy, well drained, slightly acidic and poor in nutrients. You may have to give yours one more year after transplanting to a better location... Anda
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Hi, I just wanted to add to the ESummer discussion. I am surprised about dissatisfaction with the color etc. I love the mophead hydrangeas and not having been able to keep one flowering in my yard before was a great disappointment to me. So I was delighted with the Endless Summer I had last year. It bloomed a lot and my blue flowers were a fine color blue to me, in an unamended clay/loam soil with a ph of 6.4. It was a vigorous grower and the leaves were healthy all summer. It was placed in morning sun only just under the dripline of a silver maple tree. No wilt despite two months of barely any rain but supplemental watering and lots of heat last summer. I added an oakleaf hydrangea to the yard last year, and it died back to the ground over the winter and I have one little sprout just barely up. The ES on the other hand has a bushy 8" growth covered with healthy green leaves. So if the ESummer blooms again and stays healthy for me, I will be very grateful to have a dependable mophead in the garden with pretty blue flowers. I will try to remember to come back to this thread later when the plant blooms and post a photo of it. :-)
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Bonnieann, I am sorry I forgot to tell you how great your Endless Summer arrangement looks. My DD has a couple of those plants in her yard, I think I should make an arrangement for her. I am in Zone 5b. The Annabelle plants do get full sun for almost the entire day. The PeeGee plant is on the north side and my garage blocks the sun from the west so that plant is in the shade most of the day. I don't do anything special as far as growing the plants. In the spring I wait until the buds start appearing on the stems then I cut off top portion and remove any dead stalks. As far as drying the flowers, I just leave them on the plant until they are pretty much dry on their own and then cut them and put them in a vase without water. I don't save them from year to year. They are fine for the time I have them in my arrangement. PeeGee, the blooms on both types of my hydrangea plants are smaller this year than other years. After a long colder than normal winter, we had a very cold spring and below average summer. I think that affected the size of the blooms. As an aside, here is my favorite floral arrangement, that I photographed last weekend. Here is a link that might be useful: Drying hydrangeas This post was edited by badgergal on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 1:16
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@luis_pr Thank you so very much for the info! I have seen people plant ES on the ground in the spring and dig up and put in a pot and bring inside for the winter. For me, it is almost not possible. 1, the plants are very big now, 3 ft wide and tall, as I bought the 4 gallon ones in the spring. oh well. 2, too much trouble for me and too much shock for the plant. 3, i dont have indoor space and big enough window to give them the light to keep them happy insdie. Artificial light is too much set up again. SO after some search, i will be use the cardboard box method, i think. Here are tentative steps: please help me better this process if something wrong in the procedure lol. Zone 3/4, Edmonton 1) After tree leaves fall, collect leaves in plastic bags. 2) When ES hydrangea leaves are brown and dried, covered them with a cardboard box, fill in dried leaves. 3) Tape the top of the cardboard box, to seal. 4) Secure the bottom with rocks or garden staples. 5) Wrap the box with brown burlap. 6) Wrap again the box with black landscape fabric, to absorb warmth from the sun. 7) Sit for the winter to be over, hopefully lots of snow cover. 8) Remove protection around last spring frost, on May 15 ish. 9) If Frost come back after the fact. using white drop cloth for temporary cover. I also attached a pic of my blue ES (the original) in my yard this year. Isn't this blue out of this world!
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dondeldux z6b South Shore Massachusetts
14 years ago
Hi Erica, I'm thinking it was a combination of more fertilizer (which they don't need the first year), the insecticide spray, and the sun! Is it possible that he tender leaves did not like the spray on them and burned in the sun! You may have to cut them back and wait for new growth, but no more bug spray and limit the sun until they get used to it. New plants in pots look great when you buy them but they don't acclimate themselves to the elements for a while. I have a bed of 6 hydrangeas in shade most of the day but they get 2/3 hours of sun in early afternoon and this year we added 3 new plants to the planter and the flowers burned to a crisp on the new ones and the older ones that had been in the ground for a year or so sailed through the heat and sun with no problems! The temps went up to low to mid 90's for several days, and all the hydrangeas in my yard wilted from the heat but the flowers perked up in the evening. Don't be afraid to prune them back if necessary, it will thicken the plant for you and you should still get some blooms later on the remontant types. Good Luck!

Donna
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captainobvious
14 years ago
My recently planted Hydrangeas have had similar problems to yours Erica. I had them in the pots they came in for about 3 weeks before settling on places to plant them. They all were doing fairly well up until that point (some better than others).
Once planted, the locations had a LOT of sun exposure and leaf ends started getting crispy, flowers started browning. I was watering nearly every day to replenish them, but the sun has just been too much. What I ended up doing was making some temporary shade for the Hydrangeas while they get a chance to acclimate and grow some root structure. I dead headed and clipped burnt leaves to help them out. (link below on what I did)
They've only been up a week, but I see slight improvement already. Might be worth considering as its a very cheap and easy do-it-yourself fix. Best of luck to you !

-Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Temporary shade I whipped up...
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Endless trouble with Endless Summer Hydrangeas

Comments (4)

miclino

sue36

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