Hello, midwaycat. In your location, you probably can use just about any of the
macrophyllas (aka, mophead or lacecap with white, blue, purple or pink blooms), arborescens (mophead or lacecap blooms too), quercifolia (aka, oakleaf; has panicle shaped white blooms too... usually)
and paniculata varieties (white or green panicle shaped blooms). To obtain best results meaning reliable bloomage,
consider use of arborescens and paniculata shrubs as these produce flower buds
in Spring and are normally not impacted by winter weather issues. Also, in my
opinion, their leaves handle “too much sunlight” issues better than macrophyllas so they have less wilting or drooping.
Examples of arborescens hydrangeas are Annabelle (white blooms but sometimes
suffers from flopping due to the weight of wet blooms), Incrediball (white
larger blooms; less bloom flopping after 3+ years), Invencibelle Spirit (pink
blooms; two versions: I or II), Bella Anna (pink blooms; have not seen it for
some reason lately at my local nurseries though);
White Dome (a lacecap version of Annabelle). The species versions of H.
arborescens is also sold out there; has white blooms in lacecap form but White
Dome's blooms look better to me. Because arborescens cannot be seen with bloomage
some times of the year (nurseries cut them for unknown reasons ???), and since wrong plant labels are a problem that happens, it may be
useful to see these arborescens plants in bloom before buying so you can match the bloom against the bloom in the plant label. Thus, if the plant has lacecap-type blooms and the plant label says Annabelle, woops, beware.

You can use any of the macrophyllas or oakleaf varieties
too but they can be affected by winter weather because their invisible flower
buds develop in the July-August time frame and open in Spring. They have bigger
leaves too so they can be a pain with leaf wilting/drooping in the hottest part
of the year and especially in their first summer(s). If winter gets way too cold
for the plant hardiness or if the temperatures fluctuate enough to make the
plants break dormancy, that can kill the invisible flower buds. Just recently,
these last two winters, I have had issues with both of those 2 types. Last
winter, I had some –not all- macs and oakleafs not bloom. Two years ago, I had
almost zero bloomage from all those (but the arborescens and paniculatas came thru
with no problems). White macs that only bloom once in Spring but which impressed me with their reliable bloomage are Mme. Emile Moulliere and Sister Theresa (or Sister Therese). Those two macrophyllas (mopheads) are non-rebloomers, produce invisible flower buds in July-August and tend to flower when similar ones do not.

Macrophyllas that advertise reblooming will have blooms as usual in
Spring and then again in the July-ish time frame and perhaps still again in
mild winters. These can be good for you because you do not loose bloomage for the whole year when there is a bad winter. You may loose the Spring bloomage for example but there should be another set of blooms later on.

The Endless
Summer Series, the Together & Ever Series, the Let’s Dance Series and so
forth include examples of these mopheads and lacecaps that re-bloom. Most of
them are great as they include colored blooms: white blooms or either blue-ish/purple-ish
blooms in acidic soil or pink-ish in alkaline soil. But for really reliable bloomage,
you may have to winter protect them even if they are hardy. Winter issues are not usually a problem for me so. I do not winter protect. But I pay the price (no or limited bloomage) on 'bad' winters.

The oakleaf
hydrangeas have oak shaped leaves, are hardy to zone 5 and have plain gorgeous Fall Leaf colors! I have
a compact Pee Wee that does not disappoint and it develops reddish leaves in November. There
are other compact ones and even much larger ones (10’) so check the plant
labels to see if the size will be good in your planned location(s). Little
Honey has yellowish leaves and is compact. Other compact ones are Sikes Dwarf, Vaughn’s
Lillie, Ruby Slippers, Munchkin, and some of the Gatsby Series. Oakleafs are
more drought resistant than the other hydrangeas but, they catch root rot if allowed to
sit in water for long periods of time.

Paniculatas are extremely hardy to Zone
3, have smaller leaves and develop invisible flower buds in Spring-early Summer. They include many interesting new compact versions whose name has the word “little”
in the name: Little QF or Little Quickfire (very early blooming for a
paniculata), Little Lamb, Silver Dollar, Sweet Summer, Little Lime (a compact
version of Limelight with green blooms that stay green longer with the less sun
that they get), Strawberry Sundae (a compact version of Strawberry Vanilla),
Wedding Gown, etc.

Fall is a good time to plant but during the Fall Season, many
nurseries usually have zero or low inventories. If you find any now, the good
news might be that the plant has spent the growing season developing a large root
system so you get a larger plant than if you had bought it in the Spring or
early Summer. Do prune any roots circling in the pots. Size is usually not much
an issue as most times, they tend to grow a lot quickly. But I have had some
that hardly grow on year 1 and leave growth for years 2 or 3. Go figure. As
long as their soil acidity, sunlight exposure and soil moisture requirements
are met, you should be fine. Too much sun can make the leaves turn all yellow including the leaf veins. But I suspect your area does not have summers with a strong summer sun like I do. Do not let them have wet-dry-wet-dry soil conditions but evenly moist soil with lots of mulch. Use 3-4” of mulch up to the drip line to protect the
roots from the cold temps and lengthen the soil moisture; fertilize in Spring
with ½ to 1 cup of organic mulch, composted manure or cottonseed meal; use
liquid seaweed, liquid fish or coffee grounds thru the rest of the growing
season (but stop fertilzing by thend of June so they will go dormant at the appropriate time); and again, maintain the soil evenly moist as best as you can. Stop watering when
the soil freezes but, while dormant during mild dry winter months, you can
water during dry months once every week or once every 2 weeks. If your soil is
alkaline, plant nurseries will offer for sale amendments that can be used to
acidify the soil. I amend in Spring and sometimes again by late summer or early Fall. In alkaline soils, the leaves can turn light green or even yellow-ish colors while the leaf veins remain dark green giving the leaf a skeletal look.

Be aware that hydrangea blooms start life with a certain color and,
as time passes, the blooms mature and change color until, at the end, the blooms are
brown. You can keep these brown blooms for winter interest or deadhead them. Consider too that if you go shopping now, whatever hydrangea bloomage you see now in the local nurseries
may not be (color wise) what you will see in Spring. Originally white blooms may now be green-ish or pink-ish.

Due to the reduced supply of plants now, consider buying the in Spring instead. But also consider that it may be cheaper to buy now (one of my local nurseries have azaleas and hydrangeas on sale 30% off). Oh, decisions, decisions, right?

A book like Hydrangeas by Glyn Church
contains good info if you want to learn about these shrubs. For online reading, I recommend going to this website: http://hydrangeashydrangeas.com/ I hope that helps.

By the way, if you post pictures of the planting location(s) and its dimensions, I am sure a lot of folks will chime in with specific suggestions.

Luis