ES is a macrophylla, same as Penny Mac and blooms on old wood. Any pruning past mod-late summer and you may remove next years flower buds. ES was a slow starter for me. I planted 2 in early fall, one from 3gal., one from 1 gal. The following year, the larger one had 3 blooms, none on the 1 gal. 2nd year, about a dozen on the large one, still none on the small. Third year was charm! The large one produced 75-80 flowers and a few on the small one. Each year since, the larger plant has produced in excess of 100 flowers and the smaller one is trying to catch up. They usually begin blooming by Easter each year, but not so this year. I still don't have a flower bud on either. This past winter was very hard on macrophyllas and serratas. For the first time ever, I am having to remove dead canes on the majority of them, some have required the removal of all of the old canes. I don't expect to see many flowers on any of them this year. So goes the luck of a gardener! Rb

Thank you! Luis, they are about 2ft from each other base to base. I wanted them a bit closer than normal because we're only growing them to about 3.5-4ft high. I don't want to cover the window in the front but would rather have them come up a foot or so from the bottom so we can enjoy the view from inside. These are in full bloom now as I'm writing this and will share more pics soon! :) As for the Camellia, I only have one pic of a bloom that fell off as we've had a very odd flip flopping of weather recently! This went in the ground right before the hydrangeas so I'm looking forward to seeing this grow as it gets cooler out. :) After seeing this, I can't wait!

Might as well exchange it and then mulch the new one better this November. Where'd you get it? If HD, they've got plenty of decent ones in stock right now. Mine took the same beating, and will probably need to go in a pot for a couple years or get tossed over the hill.

Very late to this party but since this thread has been resurrected, it might be helpful to offer some clarifications. Color intensity in bigleaf hydrangeas is almost exclusively due to genetics. Some cultivars just produce paler, lighter colored flowerheads and that will not change due to soil chemistry. Light exposure can have some bearing but generally only to fade or washout the coloring. Both ES The Original and Penny Mac are pale colored. You will never achieve a rich dark blue color with either despite soil conditions, as it is just not in their genetics. OTOH, cultivars like Mathilda Gutges or Enziandom have very intense coloring and will produce very deeply blue flowers in appropriate soil chemistry. And size is relative :-) I have seen 8' tall ES hydrangeas in my area but then dieback due to cold winters is pretty much unheard of here! There is no set magic number at which point a plant stops growing. If it continues to live it will continue to grow, barring pruning or cold damage.