I have several Piedmont Azaleas that LOVE our south GA humid heat. They are in filtered sunlight with about an hour of full on sun and thrive! (its just baking hot here now) very fragrant blooms. One has white blooms and one white with pink. Also a butterfly bush that is about 2.5 feet wide and only 4 ft. tall. blueish purple. (more blue looking, soft, love this plant, the size is great! I have it staggered by a rose and it is beautiful. doesn't get out of bounds.) I have several clematis that I could cut from. I have rooted them easily! I also have Becky daisies that I traded for a couple of years ago and they have been blooming for almost 3 months! Blooms are very strong and about 4ft high. We have had a few very strong storms and nothing makes them lay down! They multiply and spread wonderfully! I could dig you some of those. I am happy to share. We bought a foreclosed home (not lived in for three years and had to just tear the yard apart! People here were so generous with their trades and got me off to a great start! (I should have dug up a lot of my things from my old house, but I was so darn tired of moving, I just didn't care..) I also live in a rural area and just don't have access to fab nurseries like others! I can cut you some butterfly weed. Roots easy and is a blooming machine!

Kinlaw, I do this type of propagation in the spring. I just fill a large pot with soil, potting soil if I have a bag handy, get it real wet. Do not cover drainage holes or layer rocks or anything on the bottom - just pour in the soil. Use at least a 2 1/2 gal pot - a little deeper is good. Take cuttings - some I have used are brown branches, green branches, with or without flowers - around 15 inches or so. Make sure you have the branch cut to there are at least two leaf nodes in the dirt. I pull off the lower leaves - the ones under the soil and sometime up the stem. Use a dibble - or piece of wood to make the hole for the branch and stick in the branches. Some will have a few and some pots will have up to 15 branches. These are from trimming the bushes in the spring that are too close to the ground or just not where I want them to be. Or, any time that I am rescuing plants under the hydrangeas from being smothered by the drooping branches. Keep moist - out of sun for the first couple of months and watch for slugs- at least here in the PNW. I will take some pics tomorrow - but have given away tons of starts at a garden tour recently. The ones from this spring actually have blossoms. OH, don't forget to label the container! Sometimes they wilt, look really horrible and will lose the leaves at the top of the soil, but be patient - within a month or two, you will start to see new little green leafs and in a couple months - they will be just fine and ready for new pots or new homes. Note.... I keep them quite moist. If the pot has good drainage they will not be over watered. I revive forgotten or just dried out hydrangeas all the time by putting them in buckets of water - one to two inches deep - and leaving them there for days or even a week or so! Try it and let is know how it works. I will post some pics tomorrow.

Given your location my question was dumb. LOL. I'd want those beauties now too, if I were you. I have not seen anything like them around here in rural NC. I see mop heads in yards, always blue ones, but then in this immediate area, yards are of little color, interest, and more. The TN company where you ordered from....would they only have serratas available at certain times of the year? I'd like to get one, and then hope I could take cuttings from to have more and more, since I am on a very limited budget. It seems like there are many different types of Serrata, from a quick glance on the web. How did you ever choose? Like the "Bluebird" I looked up, what impressed was long blooming period, hardy for my zone, large "flowers" in abundance, and part shade loving since I have many large tall old trees. You must be thrilled, You have me hooked. Do the Serrata, if one takes cuttings, take 5 yrs to mature like the mop heads? At my age, that's discouraging, LOL, truth. I want to enjoy now before I'm pushing up daisies. Hellebores should be another that does well in shaded locations I thought. I've only seen closeup images on the web. I can't get a picture in my mind how they would look in my beds. If they are too floppy amidst their foliage which would not have them stand out, so to speak. THANKS AGAIN

Hydrangeas are generally easy, but oakleafs are considered by some to be a bit more difficult than the rest, and climbing hydrangeas even more so. That said, I rooted 4 (of 4 attempted) hardwood cuttings of an unknown (older) cultivar of oakleaf hydrangea this winter, indoors under LED and a homemade fog system, with bottom heat and rooting hormone. Took just under 3 months to root. I'm planning to try softwood cuttings this spring/summer as well. I haven't had any success previously with those, but that was when I was just using a typical humidity dome setup. We'll see if it goes better under fog.