My ES is new this year so it'd growth has been good but my Nikko OTH had the same problem as your ES. I don't do much for my Nikko out back but last week I decided to toss a few alfalfa pellets around the base when it was raining one day. I didn't bother to scratch them in or anything. It's growth doubled this week which isn't saying much because it was so small to begin with. Who knows if the alfalfa helped. I also hit a QuickFire with some pellets, and it put out some new growth too. Might just be the season, though. For any struggling plants, I collect rain water. Throughout drier times, I water each of my struggling guys with a gallon or 2 of that. I honestly can't think of anything we can add to the soil that helps as much as good old fashioned rain. ~MH

Usually, you do not need to prune hydrangeas. If the plant was placed in a location where it can grow to its size at maturity, pruning will not be needed often. In general, you want to prune to remove dead wood; to rejuvenate an old plant; for safety reasons; for aesthethic reasons (one stem grows more than the others); to create a standard hydrangea tree-like shape (usually done with paniculatas). ES is rebloomer hydrangea. As all hydrangeas that bloom on old wood only, ES develops flower buds in the Fall. If the stems and the buds survive winter in your area then these would develop blooms in Spring. But after that flush of blooms or if the stems dry out during winter, ES will develop new flower buds and bloom some time after the first flush. The longer your growing season is, the more flushes of blooms you can have. Deadheading (not the same as pruning) will help ES produce more blooms; maybe this is what they were talking about in the video. See the link to the Endless Summer Website below. Luis Here is a link that might be useful: ES Website: Care and growing tips

I don't grow any of the Forever and Ever, but Endless Summer is fully hardy here, right on the border between zone 4 & 5. When we have good snow cover during cold temps, I get surviving leaf buds on the branches, and even last winter when it got into the negative teens when we had absolutely no snow, it still came through with flying colors and is blooming profusely. I have it planted in morning sun next to a building and only a couple hundred feet from the Merrimack River, so it may have some protection from any late season frosts. For me it's a no fuss plant. I do have H. All Summer Beauty, which is always a bit taller than Endless Summer and doesn't have quite as many flower clusters, though they tend to be bigger. It's paler in color than ES. It's in the same bed as ES though it gets a bit more sun. The bed is really old horse manure plopped down about 8 inches deep over almost pure fine sand (too lazy to dig it in at my age) - the ideal of well drained & moist soil. On both it has lead to interesting colors, a mix of pink & blue, since the sand is acid and the manure close to neutral.

I would monitor that sun exposure. Hydrangea macrophyllas leaves usually need shade after 10-11am during the summer months (they may be fine in early Spring or in the Fall, when the sun is not as harsh. If the leaves in direct contact with sunlight are yellowing, including the leaf veins, then they are getting too much sun. You may want to consider transplanting to provide more shade. But because they are new, it is also possible that the current set of leaves is not acclimated to the amount of sunlight that they are now getting and future new leaves may be fine. I have sometimes used an umbrella or outside chair temporarily in year 1 to provide 'extra' shade instead of having to transplant them. If the problem persists in year 2, I then transplant them to get shade by 10-11am during the summer months. A nitrogen deficiency is another reason for yellowing, including the leaf veins. New leaves can also look light greenish for a while until they develop more chlorophyll. If the leaf veins were to remain dark green but the rest of the leaf is yellow, that would suggest a nutrient deficiency like iron. This is normally caused by alkaline soil and requires amending the soil with garden sulfur, aluminum sulfate greensand or iron chelated liquid compounds. Note: some of the plants are located close to the lawn. If you fertilize the lawn, be careful to not get the lawn fertilizer that close to the hydrangea roots as lawn fertilizer can be high in nitrogen. That can make the hydrangeas stay in "grow" mode and have nice foliage but few or no leaves.