I hear you. We got 6" of rain during the weekend and 3 /4" today! But we are in an extreme drought so I guess I'll take the rain.

We finally got some on the ct shoreline where it kept missing us in previous storms. Had about 0.6 on Saturday. Haven’t looked at the gauge yet but it’s somewhere between 1.5 and 2 inches today I think, the most we’ve had in weeks. The newly planted Limelight’s are drooping a little but not too bad, macrophyllas are unfazed by the rain. Grass is sure happy for the long drink. I’m happy not to be dragging the hose around.

5 inches yesterday! We really needed it.

Ha. Here I was getting spoiled . Sun's out today. Pretty dang hot. I was saying great, gives a chance for things to dry out. And lo and behold, clouds are back and I can hear a rumblin or two.

That other thread on Pinky Winky has perked my interest enough look up its growth habits

Some paniculata have a combo of stiff enough branches and light enough panicles so that they don’t flop. I have White Diamond, Pinky Winky, and Quickfire and none of them have flopped despite having had between 8 and 9 inches of rain in the past month, including some wickedly heavy downpours and a bit of hail in one of them.

My Annabelle is flopping a bit, though not horribly, and some of it can be blamed on the roofers instead of the rain Since one of their ladders was set up right in the middle of the clump. All told, however, they did surprisingly little damage, and none of it is permanent.

Wow, my roofers were going to be on top of two hydrangeas and I extracted/replanted mine for fear they would destroy the shrubs.

My garden guy is saying that pruning my new Limelights will prevent long thin branches and help prevent floppiness while we control the overall size. Is he right? I was going to go with Little Limes but he talked me into the larger ones to accommodate the pruning.

I hope you got a good roofer LPR. In my neck of the woods, it would be 1 out of 20.

Saypoint, when you say new, new as in planted this year . If so, I'd leave them alone. I go at them pretty hard in late spring. Weak branches, crossing branches, etc. Just leaving the framework. It's always a solid 2 feet + bigger from the framework every season by mid summer. The flopping gets better over the years, but that's just the nature of the framework branches getting bigger and stronger.

A1an, thanks, yes new this year, I meant pruning in spring, sorry I wasn’t clear.

Yes. Cull out the weak and crossing every spring and then just focus on the framework. Once you have the framework dialed in where you want, I cut even harder in subsequent years. It may look like a bunch of sticks in the spring, but easy 2 1/2 - 3 feet plus past those sticks once it leafs out. And yes, it will still flop with heavy continued rain when the big heads just weigh it down from getting wet. It does get better through the years as the framework gets bigger/stronger

All my hydrangeas are new this year and everything is down on the ground (except the paniculatas). I know its because they are new and not established. It will get better each year as they get more established.

Slight Heat Wave. Whew, I'm tired. Had to use the hose and walked everywhere giving some much needed supplemental watering

Yea it's oppressive out. I think last night was the hottest night this summer for my location. It was 85 degrees out at 10pm. Haven't seen it that hot that late ever...... I've been setting my mechanical timer slightly higher than I normally do in the morning just to give them that little extra drink.

I have larger emitters on thirsty plants already.......maybe it will be a spring 2019 project on creating a separate zone for just thirty plants, which was a spring 2018 project, but that's life I suppose....never ending list of to-dos. I already have the extra tube purchased already. I don't want the other plants on the same current zone to be over-watered.

Dragging a 3/4 hose all over the yard was not fun.

So since I'm new to drip irrigation what I did was I put 1 gph emitters across the board since all my shrubs are new this year except for one plant. I have an azalea bush that is pretty big. It came with the property when I bought it 11 years ago. I gave it two 1 gph emitters. In the corner of my garden there's a ton of hosta's and ferns. Instead of doing emitters to each individual plant, I installed a 90 degree micro sprinkler in the corner of the fence and a 180 degree sprinkler on the other side for a completely even coverage.

Seems like all the plants are happy with the amount of water they are getting since I haven't experienced any wilting or yellowing of leaves. However, one of my Astilbe plants has one branch with yellow leaves on it which is touching the ground. Rest of the plant is perfectly fine... Not sure if has something to do with it touching the ground. All the other Astilbes are fine even the branches that are touching the ground.

The soil is not consistent on the property. I've some areas that drain well, and some that are muck(clay) if you dig deep. Not that clay is a bad thing. So how the water behaves on the same zone/line is where I have a slight challenge . Always a balance to some degree by adjusting amounts of emitters and how much each per hr.

In a ideal world, there would be no zones. It would all be each emitter would have a ID that talked back to panel. I would adjust much water would be given based on each emitter having a variable output and each ID. Basically it emitter would be it's own moisture meter and emitter, all controlled on my iPad.

Now how about them apples :-)

Soil is pretty even for me down to about 3-4 feet deep. It then turns into this yellowish/tan sand like soil. I think it's the E Horizon soil level i'm seeing? Not sure how deep down that layer actually is. The color and consistency of what I see matches E Horizon.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/geology/soil/

Them apples? We are not in a heat wave now but normally we start going below 100 at 10pm in August. That has to be illegal somewhere in the Constitution! Them apples feel like they have been prepared to go into the oven directly from the tree! Hee hee hee. I can dream of them apples in apple pie or apple cobbler. Or maybe blackberry cobbler too! Oh, man. I am getting hungry now.

;o))

At those temps, you're lucky then. No need to fire up the oven@ home and heat up the whole house. Cast Iron skillet and just find a stable place to radiant bake it. You're ahead of the curve on this one

For the the people in New England area, have you noticed some leaves turning yellow and falling off the Hydrangeas recently? It started after we had those two cold nights this past Friday and Saturday. It happened on my Limelight, Vanilla Strawberry and my Macro.

This is my first year having Hydrangeas so still learning their behavior.

Not here in zone 7a CT. Dogwood leaves turning brown and falling though. Very dry here.

Hmm OK. The leaves that turned yellow are low down on the plant in the center that get little to no sun from the higher up leaves blocking the light. All the higher up leaves are doing fine. I'm in 6a Mass.

It is common for paniculatas to "show their feet" when there is heat stress in the summer. I would not worry much. You can increase the amt of water if the soil feels dry but there is not much one can do about high temperatures, low humidity and the strong summer sun.

Surprisingly, the cut blooms I cut I scattered ontop on the boxwoods just to play with the look, and they haven't browned out yet ! It's kinda like early Halloween Decorating I suppose

Years ago, I ran into a picture of some mophead hydrangea blooms that someone spray painted shades of orange and-or purple and-or both colors. Very nice and timely for Halloween.

Rained all Spring and Summer here... We broke records this year for the most rain... We just got 3 inches this past Monday...I'm just started out growing [Hydrangeas[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/hydrangea-forum-dsbr0-bd~t_29934) ...We have two bloomstruck that were planted in May...There doing ok...