Yes, Connie, any bloom counts. I've just been oohing and ahing over a quarter-inch flower on the windowsill cactus. Catrose, this is a great time of the year to live in Texas, but when your roses are peaking, ours will be sad, brown-edged crispy critters. I love crocus, too, Kate, but they're something else Dallas doesn't do well. They'll last maybe a couple of years here before deciding it's too darn hot. Molly, how big does Spice get for you? I'd love to be able to shoehorn it in somewhere. I agree, Melissa, that not all zone 8's are created equal. Even the pros here can't grow roses to the perfection that you do, or the lucky folks who in Oregon and Washington. Maybe summer temperatures should be taken into consideration as well. Kathy, Martha G was my first OGR. I went to the nursery to get a Knockout but saw her instead, and that led me to this forum. How lucky was that!

I have my first hydrangea - Forever and ever, it is quite small, but has several flower buds. The first bloom started opening about two weeks ago, they start green and turn pink as they get a little larger (each little flower.) Only two are completely pink. How long does it take for each of those little flowers to fully open. I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this correctly.

Wilting indicates a moisture problem, usually a lack of water. It is extremely common during the summer for obvious reasons and may or may not be related to the problems with blooms that do not open. So monitor the water and make sure that the shrubs have 3-4" of mulch to conserve moisture (the top of the mulch will look dry but the bottom will be moist). Add the mulch up to or slightly past the drip line. You can monitor this manually using the finger method. Remove a little of mulch and then insert a finger into the soil to a depth of 4". If it feels almost dry or dry then water and mark that you watered on the calendar. Test daily for a week or two until you observe a watering pattern developing. Then set the sprinkler to water on the same frequency. If the temperatures fluctuate, repeat the finger test for a week or so and tweak the sprinkler if you need to. As the years go by, increase the amount of water since the shrubs will be bigger. Hydrangeas in full sun up in the north is common. In the south, the shrub's leaves will fry though. The only thing to worry about in this scenario is that the sun can help dry out the soil so monitor this specially during the summer and mulch, mulch, mulch. If your hydrangeas were getting too much sun, you would see the leaves in contact with the sun turning completely yellow or white (and browning out after a while). Browning of leaves at this time of the year suggests lack of water. Browning later in the fall would be due to the plant going formant. It is a good idea to water accoding to the finger method otherwise you can end up watering too much. Wet soil, for long periods of time, causes root rot. Ironically, one of the symptoms of root rot is wilting because the rotted roots cannot supply the shrub with enough moisture.

And some produce sports (branches that bloom of a different color) or revert to the parents' colors too. I kind of like when that happens so tell the nursery to send me that white/pink combo shrub. Hee hee hee. Remembering old bloomage... I had a branch of a peppermint-like blooms that started blooming 'weird' on its 2nd year. Had plain pinks and other white-pink combinations not like it was supposed to be. I liked it but lost the shrub due to the dogs the next year. I would not worry about small imperfections at first; cold weather, insufficient watering, etc can all cause minor issues. The general shape and color should approximate what is in the plant label though. Lord knows that buying a camellia not in bloom can result in buying a mislabeled camellia. It has not happened to me (yet) with camellias but it has happened with roses and hydrangeas that were not in bloom.