Thanks, tmac and bellarosa! tmac, I have been out of town for the last few days, and I just came back home. On my way back from the airport, I stopped by Lowe's and found the 1 gallon pot of F&E RED! I thought that I must come and post this for you, only to see this post! I guess Lowe's has a better deal then, at $14.99! However, I was hoping to get a larger plant though... sigh... let me wait a little bit... bellarosa - please post a pic! I am dying to see that red bloom!

They look very nice and seem to be ready for a very productive year of beautiful blooms. I took your advice and bought one each of Blue Heaven and Together, will plant them this weekend. Plus 5 ES I planted in early May so lot of watering to do. But I look forward to a yard with them bloom as good as yours. Hopefully they will all survive and do well. The reason that I am a little concerned is that I planted two hardy hydrageas last summer, they did ok then, but this year so far lot of new branches and nice leaves, but no buds yet. Not sure if I pruned them too early (I was new at this last fall so I may have pruned them last fall when they are done with blooming). but now I know better. Thanks for your help again. I learned so much from you and other experienced posters here.

I planted 3 Forever & Ever RED hydrangeas at the end of summer last year in my new flower bed. They don't droop half as much as my ES did before! With my ES, I had to water them twice a day for the first year or two in order to prevent wilting. However, my F&E are no where near ES as a vigorous grower. They were bought in these small 1 gallon pots from Lowe's last year. Now it's July and they are still these little things, probably just measuring 1' tall and 1.5' wide each. I am watering them daily and I just want them to hurry up to grow bigger!!! LOL BTW, there is still no flower bud in sight. So, I am being very patient with my F&E. Comparing to the neighboring Annabelle, these guys just grow way too slowly for me! If they are not going to hurry up, I may just rip them out and replace them with another Annabelle or Blue Billows or something like that!!! LOL! Anyway, I am wondering if the fact that mine are F&E RED made a difference? Do the regular F&E, RED and DOUBLE PINK all grow differently?

Some companies -on their own- change plant names to try and improve sales so it may be that they are the same plant. Peole want to see a real red hydrangea bloom so they advertise that in the name. But so far, the reddest is just a dark shade of pink. RS is probably just 'eh, ok' shrub from what you are finding out. Suggestion: do a forum search for Red Sensation to see what others have to say about RS. And of course, keep in mind you will often just find complaints, since those who have good stories do not necessarily post good stories. Being macrophyllas, they can handle morning sun but prefer afternoon shade as macrophyllas are understory plants. In the northern half of the US, they can get more sun exposure but, they will certainly do their best if you give them shade in the afternoon or dappled sun. As reference points, down here in Texas, I give my macrophyllas shade starting at 11am to 12pm. Up in the northeast, my mother-in-law had a Nikko Blue in full sun from after 11am thru sundown. These times are in the summer months by the way. In the spring, the sun is not too harsh so you could give them lots of sun in just about anywhere. The sun exposure problem makes the leaves in the summer sunscorch and the blooms brown out from excessive sun exposure. So leaves in direct contact with the sun will turn all yellow -incuding the leaf veins- or all whiteish and then fall down. The leaves not in contact with the sun will remain a normal dark green as usual. Just about all H. macrophyllas can be placed in pots. The main problem -if you want to call it a problem- is that some macrophyllas get quite large and would not look good in a pot not in sync with their eventual size. Say think of a shrub that has achieved a size of 6' by 6' but was in a 4' wide pot. So you decide a bigger pot instead of pruning and then the pot occupies a lot of real estate. And this type of plant -when large- has to be pruned regularly to keep it in check and looking good. And some people do not want an added annual chore. Another chore is bringing the pot inside in cold winters. Large pots are way heavy and problematic to move by yourself sometimes. So there is nothing wrong with growing in pots, just stuff that has to be done which can be a pain.