I have had the same luck with Endless Summer Hydrangea as Jackz41!! Endless Summer is rated as Zone 4. In northern Wisconsin, I saw that many people did not have good luck with Endless Summer blooming before mid-July up here, this could be a problem elsewhere in the country too. I have over 65 roses so I took a wintering trick from my roses to get Endless Summer to bloom early! I bend the plants completly over and hold them down with bricks or larger rocks, in early November after a hard freeze(this can be hard as the shrubs get bigger, but you can do it carefully) I then cover them lightly with oak leaves and let snow fall on them! As we get lots of snow up here it has worked well for winter protection so the tips do not freeze! I have not had any mold problems with this trick! I have been growing Endless Summer since they first came out on the market, I have seven of them some just planted 1.5 ago. The older plants are around 3.5-4'high-4' wide. They get 4-5 hours of direct sunlight and filtered for several more hours, I also fetilize them with the same fertilizer I use for roses in lesser amounts. They start blooming in the middle of June with lots of blooms in all colors depending on your soil. I just add nail filings to make some of them more blue and leave the rest of the plants alone so I get colors from blue to lavender, purple and pink! Later in summer the mature blooms turn more green, then in fall they take on a burgandy hue with the green. They are really pretty, hardy and long blooming and great cut flowers when dryed as they mature in the Fall. Along with my pee-gee and several annabelle's (my hydrangea work horse) I love my Endless summer hydrangea's just as much as my roses!!

Hi EllaRose: Bluegirl in Texas posted a great tip on how heat at the bottom encourages root growth, see link below. Roses die in my zone 5a mainly due to: 1) fluctuations in temp., thaw-and-freeze, and a sun-room will do just that: hot sun during the day, and freezing temp. at night. My house has 22 windows, most face southern exposure. It gets above 70 degrees during the day with sunshine, then dips to low 50's at night. That's hard on plants. 2) Roses also die due to dryness in my zone 5a. The root balls, if buried in deep in wet soil outside, won't dry out. The root balls, if covered in a dark garage, and watered once a month, won't dry out. 3) Indoor plants: You have a HOT basement ? If there's a window, roses can keep growing, but there are many drawbacks: too dry, and you'll get spidermites. Too wet, or misting with sprayers, and you'll get black spots. I'm not sure if it's worth it. I kept herbs in a basement (with a window) and I'll never do that again. White flies, black canker from over-watering, not worth it. I agree with Seil that keeping them dormant (dark & cool) at a stable temp. is best. Freezing and thawing is hard on the roots. See link below for Bluegirl's excellent tip on digging a pit to shelter rootings in Texas fall weather. Here is a link that might be useful: Hot beds for fall rooting by Bluegirl This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Oct 25, 13 at 13:31

@ Tina Do. I did use rooting hormone called hormodin. I really think you could use honey with hydrangeas or probaly nothing, they seemed really easily to root. I think I had 100 % that rooted( I did 15 cuttings). You will know when they are ready for outside if you can pull on them and they feel connected to the cup. If the cutting moves without the container it means its not ready.I think 3-4 weeks inside you should start feeling them ready for outside. The hard part is when you take them outside. Its hard to avoid wilting and leafs turning brown. Once you starting seeing new growth after moving outside put them in the ground. You really have to stay on top of the watering when you do this. I did around 15 cuttings and have about 12 in the ground. 2-3 almost almost died when transferred to the ground, now these are putting out new shoots. But they are small plants. My first freeze is still 8 weeks away here so hopefully they will all make it through winter here. This was my first time doing this. I seen another obstacle is winter but we have very mild winters here so think they all should make it. I still have 8 weeks here before our first frost.

Is it a heated garage? Did you water it while dormant? Sorry @luis_pr for the delay in replying. The garage is not heated (the coldest I observed inside the garage was -12 C/10 F while it was -22 C/-8 F outside) and the only water it got was from 'clumps' of snow that I would put on it every once and awhile through the winter. So here it was on May 17: And today, about 6 weeks later: I can tell you that it looks lots larger than it actually is, but clearly it is producing flowers (on strictly new wood).