gardenfreak,i used miracle grow mix but going to change next year as i have to root prune them, i'll use some shultz premium and amend that with some other mixes to keep the soil from drying out to fast. The pots are probably around 25 gallons or so but not exactly sure, i might also try a different container as well although similar but more straight sided not sure i have to see the costs. At end of seson i usually let the soil dry some and the containers get much lighter to move with hand truck, my uncle used to grow 1 tree much bigger than mine that had a nice size trunk but it was a lot more work as him and his son would bury in yard every year they did this many many years(faamily tree) long story. So the way i do is actually easier for me instead of bury in yard because i would have to bury too many or wrap and cover to many our winters can be nasty. To me there nothing special growing in pots its kinda cheating as i just move them with hand truck the folks that grow them inground and wrap or bury many of them thats the real growers in my opinon and much more work they deserve the credit! it just works best this way for me. Thanks for looking and the forum is nice to see ones options as there are several different ways to choose from. Merry Christmas and Healthy New Year Martin

Most bigleaf hydrangeas - like the one in your photo - bloom on growth that was produced the previous season. So the buds for next year's flowers are already present. Pruning now (or in spring) will remove them......no flowers. The flowers bud can also be damaged by winter cold or late spring frosts. Not often a big problem in zone 7 and higher but last winter was unusually cold in many areas and flowering was limited for many gardeners. Generally my recommendation for these types of hydrangeas is to avoid any pruning if at all possible. Site the plant so that it can be allowed to grow to size unimpeded. Deadheading (removing old flowers) and removing dead wood/stems is not exactly the same as pruning and can be done at any time. More extensive pruning can be done but typically involves at least a partial loss of flowering. Here is a link that might be useful: how to prune hydrangeas

This was my first season growing stuff, so I have nothing to compare to, but well, let's just say it wasn't the experience of dancing in the forest with unicorns and getting to one-ness with nature that we thought going in. - May cold/rain - killed 2/3 of our garden; we basically had to start over with plants from a local store to replace the ones we'd nurtured from seed for the previous 9-10 weeks - Aphids - totally infested our garden after the rains; took many weeks of ongoing battle and monitoring to get under control, although ultimately controllable. - Flea beetles - like aphids, a controllable problem, if you stay on top of them and don't let them capture the initiative on the battlefield. They ate hundreds of holes in our foliage. Turns out they have a thing for Serranos, for some reason. - Slugs: The rains brought these guys in; seemed like a nightmare, but once we killed 'em they never came back - Early blight - knocked out a few of our tomatoes, almost overnight. My first introduction to what a really serious garden problem looks like - Horn worms - makes you appreciate the relative lack of destructiveness of the aphids and beetles. In early August these friendly caterpillars showed up, and ate an entire Jalapeno plant in 24 hours, amongst other delicacies. They gorge on individual plants until all the foliage and fruit are gone. Stark, empty branches poke into the sky with nothing on them. 2-3 weeks of extreme early-morning diligence was required to put this problem to bed. - Powdery mildew: Basically killed our cucumbers and infected our tomatoes. The treatment gets the job done, but brings its own problems. - Blossom end rot. Aside from one plant that was strangely immune to BER, about 1/3 of our entire tomato crop and some peppers had it. The calcium treatments we tried made things worse. - Fusarium wilt: makes you wish for the good old days of aphids and beetles. Serious, demoralizing garden problem. - Late blight: and now, in the last 2 weeks, we have whole plants just falling over dead with late blight. - And now it is unbelievably cold for mid september in Virginia, grinding plant growth and pod ripening to a standstill. I need just ONE week of sunny 70's to grab about 50 pods off the plants, and can't seem to get it. Despite all that, we managed to harvest a few hundred peppers and about a hundred tomatoes. All in all, well worth the effort. Very rewarding, but not as easy or relaxing as I thought it would be. Hopefully next year will be easier.

I like the composition. Using a lower lens stop to control the depth of focus should be used on more photographic images. Perfect focus on a shot such as yours would have a much different result. CONGRATS!