What you describe is the natural progression of hydrangea blooms. Regardless of what type of blooms you have, they start a certain color. Then as the blooms fade, they change colors ending in brown. At this point, you can leave the brown blooms for winter interest or you can deadhead them. Transplanting and planting for the first time may have altered the normal color progression so I would not worry that it did not do that last year.

The further south you are and the higher the temperatures, the faster this process can kick start. In this weird year, my shrubs began to flower early in March and the blooms turned brown about 2 weeks ago or so.

As for what type of hydrangea, gift hydrangeas tend to be H. macrophyllas and are sold in grocery stores or florists. If the gift was a plant that someone propagated, it could be anything but H. macrophylla is the most common.

Some newer H. macrophylla and H. serratas are re-bloomers too and, when you deadhead the blooms, that triggers the plant to produce blooms again. These two types of hydrangeas (the rebloomers and the once bloomers) normally produce invisible flower buds in July-August at the ends of the stems and they open in the Spring. Re-bloomers then also develop invisible flower buds again in May or June and these open in July-August.

Other varieties of hydrangea that produce white blooms are H. arborescens (has white mophead-like blooms) and H. paniculata (has panicle-like blooms). These develop invisible flower buds in May-June and then flower in July-August. With few exceptions, these only produce white blooms.

Below is a link to a website that can help you identify which kind of hydrangea you have for sure and it has lots of pictures that you can use to compare. The most common hydrangea is H. macrophylla and its blooms are in the forms of mopheads or lacecaps so people just call the plants mopheads or lacecaps.

To tell which kind of hydrangea you have, click here:

http://hydrangeashydrangeas.com/identify.html

For information on deadheading or information on pruning, click here:

http://hydrangeashydrangeas.com/pruning.html

Feel free to spend time in the website as it has lots in interesting information.

To keep the soil moisture in check, try using the finger method: insert a finger into a soil early in the mornings to a depth of 4" and water if the soil feels dry or almost dry. One gallon of water per watering is probably ok in Spring, Fall and Winter. About 1.5 gallons may be needed in the Summer. Once the plant goes dormant, you can water 1g once a week or once every two weeks if it is rainy. Continue like that thru Spring but stop if your soil freezes in Winter.

Keep the plant well mulched all year around up to the drip line and feed it nce in Spring with 1/2 to 1 cup of organic compost, composted manure or cottonseed meal.

It may be late to mention this since you planted last year but, lower part of the states, hydrangeas will do best in morning sun and afternoon shade. But it already sounds like yours is doing very well right where it is.

To make sure that they blooms reliably, H. macrophylla mophead and lacecaps in cold zones are usually winter protected. You can find more information about this by doing a find in the forum for 'winter protection'.

Luis

If you post a photo here, we may be able to ID what type it is, either or specifically, since between the group of us we grow a large number of species and cultivars.

If you want to add zone and location to your profile so it posts automatically by your name as Luis' and mine do, here's how:

Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone.

If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures.

Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.

Thanks luis_pr and NHBabs for your very informative and reassuring comments, as well as the links to even more information. From the identification link, it appears we have an Oakleaf variety.

Here is a look at the overall plant, about 5' X 5'. The sun passes from left to right, with shade trees on the left, and the fence on the right. The plant begins to get sun in the late morning. This picture was taken around 4:30 PM. The front half will continue to receive sun for another couple of hours, but as you can see, the back half of the plant has lost the sun, and that will be for the rest of the day.

Here is a picture taken at the same time that shows a portion of the plant in the shade. The flower is one of the few left that still shows pink. The white flowers all turned pink several weeks ago. Note the beautifully patterned leaves; they are almost exclusively found toward the back (less sun) side of the plant. There are a few in the front, but always more toward the interior of the plant and/or under other shade providing leaves that are not patterned.

Finally here is a picture of one of the flowers that has turned brown.

Thanks again for all your help. The internet can be a good thing or a bad thing (or I suppose an innocuous thing). This is a good example of one of the good things!

You have a beautiful oak leaf hydrangea. Iron deficiency can cause the coloration on some of the leaves you are seeing. I'm sure Luis can give you more information about this.

Just wait until you see the beautiful fall leaf colors !

Ah, yes. Those are spent blooms all right.That ones reminds of Amethyst:

http://hydrangea.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=469&=SID#MOREINFO

Oakleaf hydrangeas are not rebloomers so you can either keep the blooms for winter interest or deadhead them. Or you could paint them colors for Halloween, etc Ha! I deadheaded mine last week.

The plant in the second picture has iron chlorosis, maybe caused by alkaline soil that has gotten too alkaline for the hydrangea. I have alkaline soil so I amend the soil with garden Sulfur, aluminum sulfate, greensand or iron-chelated liquid compounds. Whichever I happen to have handy that year. Typically, I amend in the Spring almost always. Then I have to amend again sometimes in July-September (but only on some years).

Temporary iron chlorosis can also occur is there is a lot of rain for several weeks and the soil gets moist or wet a lot. I get it on rainy years in the Fall and if I ignore it, the lants fix themselves once the rains stop. But in the meantime, the leaves do not look so "hot" so perhaps I should just amend the soil and fix the problem faster that way. Speaking of fast, the iron-chelated liquid compounds work much faster than the solids and may be purchased at most plant nurseries.

Here is more information about iron chlorosis on hydrangeas:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/diagnose/plant/deciduous/hydrangea/leavesdiscolored.html

A word of caution: oakleaf hydrangeas do not like getting their feet wet for long periods of time. When I first moved into my current home, I planted an Alice Oakleaf Hydrangea that grew fine until a El Nin~o Year killed it. It just rained a lot, the soil is clay (amended but still clay) and when it rained a lot, water used to pond where Alice was located. The plant died quickly and I had to get someone to work on the soil to fix the problem.

I hope you again enjoy the Fall Colors and the bark peeling off in winter-ish!

Thanks again! The pictures are all of the same plant, the only one we have. The soil it was planted in is also has quite a bit of clay in it, and as I said it is watered daily by a spray head on the sprinkler system. I'll look more closely at at the moisture content of the soil, and adjust accordingly.

This conversation, looking at the links you sent and the beauty of the plant itself has piqued our interest in Hydrangeas. One last question, are there varieties that do well low light/shade?

Hydrangeas can be grown in around 2 hrs of sun, less and even in full but bright shade.
If the full shade for example is not dense shade but an area where
indirect sun reaches the plant, they can do well there too. They
probably might have slightly more blooms in 'more sun' scenarios though. The more dense the shade is then the more spindly growth may be.

In the northern part of the country, some hydrangeas can take up more sun -even full sun- since the sun is 'weaker'. Paniculatas and arborescens are hydrangeas that take full sun best. Then oakleaf hydrangeas and H. macrophylla mopheads/lacecaps.

A
famous hydrangea researcher, Dr. Dirr, said oakleaf hydrangeas did very well for
him in low light in the southeast: "In Athens (Athens, Georgia is his
home/university), oakleaf hydrangea is sited in full sun to heavy shade
situations. Best long-term performance is always realized in partial to
significant shade in the Southeast."

If not sure, you can always experiment by keeping
the plant planted in a pot for a whole season in one location, evaluating the
results at the end of the season and moving the pot elsewhere in the Fall if you want to try another
location. When you finally decide on a location, plant it in the ground (less stressful if done in the Fall or Winter... once the plan has gone dormant).

A photo will help us tell. If there is too much water, root rot possible. If too much sun could be sunburn (red tones in leaves can help indicate higher sun levels.

Thanks so much for all the help and advice. We are going to incorporate Hydrangeas in our border garden - one we plan in front of an evergreen privacy wall. Now we delve further into the internet to find the best/fastest growing evergreen for that backdrop.

No worries ... enjoy the hunt!