Your description does sound like CH is doing what it is notorious for... waiting to bloom until it reaches the top of that which it is growing on. High phosphorus levels in other plants encourage blooming but I just do not know if the plant will respond like roses do for example. Epsom salts mostly contain magnesium and some Sulfur. By the way, I am not sure how well the small tendrils will do trying to climb limestone rocks in your garage. Maybe someone has already tried and can chime in.

G'morning g..g..148 - Beautiful! How long do her blossoms last? What you surmised about H.a petiolaris, seems to make sense even here in my zone. I've been growing my Petiolaris since '06 (realizing her slow habit) ... a very wet/cool Spring of '08 boosted her growth & even surprised me with beautiful, tho short lived, blossoms! This season started very wet & once more, gave her a great running start, however the last 2 wks of June was oppressively steamy (upper 90s w/ mid100s heat index) ... needless to say, much of Petiolaris' young, beautifully growing, heart-shaped, foliage got steam-cooked, no blossoms either ... what's more, might have stunted her initial growth spurts! Â:( I'm still cleaning up her scorched foliage. She is recovering well, with our entire July, of beautifully sunny & unseasonably, cooler than normal temps ... (tho very dry. easily remedied) ... 'hope she picks up in the growth dept, soon, again!!! Â;) ... still has a long way to cover our 40' retaining wall. Thanks for your thoughts on H.a.petiolaris - I value this thread, refer to it & recommend it, as a great tutorial ... too bad Chelone's photos have been deleted - they were worth thousands of words!!! Have a great day!

I have a climbing hydrangea that is 3 years old and almost 6 ft tall, with several laterals. I have trained mine through a trellis--here's a pic: Mine also tries to spread across the ground--I just cut them off--I figure keeping them just diverts the plant's energy from growing taller and spreading farther. Since trimming them again this year, I've noticed the laterals are putting on new growth. The lack of growth of your plant may be due to placement or watering or both. My vine gets morning sun and afternoon shade and I water very frequently (every other day at the least.) I recently removed several roses from that trellis--while there, the roses were fertilized regularly, so the vine benefitted from proximity to them. Hope this helps!

1. Always check for soil moisture before watering rather than watering by a random formula or advice from someone not on site. Soil should be lightly damp, not dry and not sodden when you stick your finger in as deeply as possible. It does look like your local soil is quite different from the soil in the hole where you planted it, just from the little I can see of the photo. This can create issues with water movement sometimes when the texture is different (especially in clay or sandy soils), so the soil immediately surrounding the plant might be either wetter than the surrounding soil or drier. I usually plant in an entire bed I've prepared, not just a hole, since that means the soil texture is more even in a larger area around the plant. Did you water the plant in the pot before sticking in the ground? If not and the potting soil was dry, it may not have wetted due to texture differences. Peat-based potting soils can remain dry once they have dried out unless submerged until bubbles stop. If on arrival you didn't tease apart any circling or tangled roots, do that also, and spread them out a bit. I would probably add a third suggestion to move it to a pot for now so you can keep a close eye on it. In the pot just as in the ground, use potting soil lightly damp, not soggy or dry when you stick your finger in as deeply as possible. If the soil ball of the plant is dry, soak it before planting. Keep it in the shade, but bright shade, for now; this is a shade tolerant plant, and so giving it light without direct sun will help give it its best chance. As Luis said, if you leave it in the ground, a chair or something to give it shade would be helpful and a large disk of mulch to help keep the soil moisture and temperature more even is important, just don't place it against the stems - give it a few inches of unmulched area immediately around the plant. 2. Then, as GG48 said, "You need to be patient. Mail order plants can take some time to recover from their traumas and recovery from any transplant shock can take longer than you expect." It seems you have had them for a week. In plant time, that's a blink of an eye for a plant that seems to have had a difficult life before arriving at your home. Once you have checked and fixed its light, water and soil needs, just sit back. You have let the original nursery know that it arrived in tough shape, and now you just have to sit back and not love it to death to see how it will do. It looks like it had lost one crop of leaves (the dead ones you cut off) and what's there now is in tough shape, but may yet recover. If not, it will need to form new leaves, and that takes time that just can't be rushed. If no other lesson, gardening has helped me develop at least a tiny smidge of patience over the years. ;>) 3. I don't know where you ordered this from, but based on the state of the plant and their lack of response so far despite this being relatively early in the shipping season, I have an inkling that it may not have been the best choice, though I could be completely wrong as most nurseries occasionally have issues with how a plant arrives. If you want to check out the nursery you ordered from, look on Garden Watchdog. Put its name into the lower search box on the left of the linked page and you will see other gardeners' reviews of this nursery. If there are many negative reviews, you may want to ask here about better mail order vendors; there are many excellent nurseries on line. Best wishes with the plant. Let us know how it does.