Congrats and ahem, good luck ;-)

The Baileys are the only one that suffered none to some winter kill, but nothing dead to dirt

guyground..oh well..nobody's perfect Lol..

Yeah i guess it’s not too different than most roses, I plant. Oh well . . .

I was thinking about your post today. I saw Summer Crush locally for sale but ugh, all the plants had powdery mildew!!!

My regular nurseries redid their entire outdoor area fall 2018....with pavers, crushed stone where the plants are, shade screened tenting for those shrubs that require it, a fountain, a outdoor gazebo for the new outdoor ~help center~, the works. Their prices are high but it really is nice to not have to walk on muddy boots and for the 1st time this year, all the plants are super healthy as the season progresses as there is no more stuff from the dirt.

Saw them at my local garden center in full bloom, LOL JUST ANOTHER MAC, KEPT walking...

hyed..I would RUN haha

I'm hoping if it does not get that big, it should be easier to winter protect.

It sure looks healthy. Good luck with it!

GG. In response to the VS pic posting. Here's hoping your summer crush grows to whatever footprint you deem. 18 months since planting 3G compacts, the size is creeping on on 2/3 the listed size. Here's hoping they are compact (for the intend look I wanted). They were listed as compacts afterall

Are you saying you have summer crush which now is 2/3 of listed size? Typically, the sizes they give are pretty accurate, so likely should be ok.

Not SC. I planted Lets Dance Series. planted 18 months ago, and new growth from base is already at 2 feet + in overall size. I always errr on 2 extra feet but wasn't expecting it to be so big in the time it's been planted.

If your growing season is long (as it tends to be the further south you live), your plants may get taller and wider than the averages on the plant labels.

Here come the flowers.

Wow, just in time. Many of my mophead and oakleaf flowers are looking old. Then again, the flower buds did open much earlier. Enjoy with a glass of wine, soda or tea!!!

You won’t be disappointed :)

Wow. What zone do you live in ?

I got it at HD about the same time last year. Same color. Lost the tag. Now I know what it is :-)

Taken on June 19 2018. No buds this year :-(

If it stays under 2.5 - 3ft I would think it is Pia.

I live in zone 5b. To be fair, I did just purchase it this year so I can’t fairly make an honest review but I love it so far! It is not needy at all (water wise) compared to my other mophead. The color is so vivid and the blooms are just massive.

If purchased in June/July of 2018 not likely to be Summer Crush.

pennlake,

On what do you base the above statement?

Summer crush came out this year

Thanks - very interesting!

I concur; it is new for 2019:

https://www.baileynurseries.com/brands/endless-summer/

... unless one participated in a testing program prior to approval of sales to consumers. Here is a cool SC photo at Bailey Nurseries if anyone is interested:

https://www.baileynurseries.com/media-room/

When you click on the link immediately above, scroll down below where it says "BAILEY NURSERIES EVOLVES ITS IDENTITY" but above "Bailey Nurseries 2019 Events"

I love the color!

Hi all, I also have summer crush (6 of them), that I planted in May. Not long after, the plants began developing what I am assuming is some type of fungal disease... They bloomed beautifully in spite of what started off as a touch of fungus. They really did look spectacular, tiny as they are (for now). But now the fungus is just getting worse and worse--looks especially bad now that I dead-headed the first bloom. It looks like leaf spot, I guess. Does not have any powdery rub-off that would indicate rust. I've treated with a copper fungicide, twice, but it didn't seem to do anything at all.

The plants are in morning shade and afternoon sun (I know, not ideal). They can supposedly take full sun but I still thought perhaps the afternoon sun was burning the foliage. But it really just looks like fungus. We have had a lot of rain this year, like most of the US (I'm about an hour north of Philadelphia)... And it's been very humid, the norm for this time of year. So pretty primo fungal conditions. I have been watering them in the rare patches where we haven't had a significant amount of rain for three or four days.

Anybody have any input on exactly what this looks like, and recommendations on how to treat it? I've spent over an hour on the internet investigating my hydrangea problem and can't come to any good conclusions on my own. I was pretty disappointed that the Endless Summer website does not have any information at all on disease control. These are my first hydrangea, so I don't really know how disease-resistant they are as a species. I'm hoping this is not going to be an on-going battle year after year.

Thanks for any advice!

post picture if possible

Hm, tried to attach photos to my last post but didn't seem to work. Trying again here?

Pic? Overhead watering of leaves tends to cause cercospora leaf spot. See the link below for a picture from Penn State showing what it looks like:

https://extension.psu.edu/hydrangea-diseases

If it is that, you can water the soil always and never the leaves to control this. Or you can set the sprinkler close to 6am so the leaves are not wet all night long. Severely infected leaves can be cut and thrown in the trash so the fungi does not spread in the compost pile. In the Fall, you can dispose of the leaves and blooms in the trash too to minimize spreading the fungi.

Yes, we need photos to make any kind of recommendation. But I would guess what you are seeing is cercospora leaf spot, which is extremely common with newly purchased/planted bigleaf hydrangeas. They often come from the nursery already infected due to their watering practices.

It tends to be more cosmetic than actually harmful to the plant and they typically will grow out of it. You just need to avoid any overhead watering (unfortunately, not much you can do about rain). I also can't speak to summer humidity and how much of a factor this might be, as this is non-issue in my very summer-dry climate.

Thanks for the reply, Luis. Initially, I pulled a lot of the infected foliage off, but then realized I would defoliate probably 50% of the young plant if I kept at it. I read somewhere that the hydrangea can carry on pretty well even with a fungal infection, so that left me encouraged to not completely devastate the plant by removing all the infected leaves. And now it's turned into basically a 75% infection rate (of varying extent) on leaves that are not new or new-ish growth. After these photos I did of course remove the worst offenders in terms of the foliage... :(

Also, I haven't done a ton of watering as the sky has done most of it for me, but when I do, I water the base of the plant. I usually set the hose nozzle down at a trickle for a while to get a good deep watering, splash-free, and move it along to the next plant after 15 or 20 minutes. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of splashing that I can't control.

Don’t remove foliage, plants use foliage to help store Energy. You have fungal disease it’s not big deal. Spray. I use Bayer 3 in 1 spray for roses (fine for shrubs/hydrangeas too). It works against mites/insects/and fungal disease.

I sprayed mine with Bayer 3 in 1 spray prophylactically as soon as I planted in May.

Thanks guyground, I will try that spray. Going to look for it today at the garden center.

Btw, removing leaves that look like a train wreck I don't think is harming the plant at all, and definitely helping to combat the spread.

Thanks for the reply Gardengal, that is some great info about the macrophyllas

(macrophyllae? what's the plural?) coming from the nursery pre-infected. And yeah, that's what I had read maybe a month ago when I noticed the infection--that it wasn't too harmful. Encouraging to hear that here, too.

I think I'll take guyground's suggestion and do some prophylactic spraying the next time I pick up the big leaf hydrangeas. Is that a problem common to all hydrangeas? Or just the macrophylla?

mainly just with the Big leaf hydrangeas.

Summer Crush doing well

Nice. Summer Crush is a solid hydrangea

Just planted this Summer Crush beauty two weeks ago. Got it from a very reputable garden center. I'm afraid its getting too much sun. Anyone have any ideas? Can I move it now or will that be too much for the plant to handle in such a short time. I planted another one on the same day that is thriving.

How much sun is "too much sun"? These really perform best in morning sun until around midday, then shade for the rest of the day. Or all day dappled or filtered shade.

If only in place for two weeks, you should be able to move it with only minimal additional disturbance.

Nancy,

I would move it now! If it is getting full sun in the afternoon it is too much, Not only will the sun blast it, the reflection off of the white stone pathway and the white board on the left as well as the house are all too much! Reflected light is almost as bright and hot as direct sunlight. The roots will be just fine if you dig them out and make sure that they are not dry. Many times the water will just scoot around a root ball and not penetrate at all. If the roots are dry - soak them in a bucket of water for a couple of hours and then plant in the soil. The best way to know if you have decent drainage in the new spot is to dig the hole, fill with water and see if it drains. If it stays in a puddle, pick a new spot. Test the new spot to make sure it is good. When houses are built, many contractor move soil, rocks and even dump cement on the site and later just cover up the rubbish with fresh soil and that causes problems for the gardens.

We move hydrangeas all the time - all seasons and all temps. When you take a plant out of the nursery container, be sure to loosen the root ball and shake as much soil off as possible. You want to plant with as much native soil as possible! Nursery potting soil and native soil can form a barrier and the roots of the plant will never get wet. Don't be afraid that you will kill the plant if you are aggressive with the roots - you will not harm it and then spread out the roots and keep the top of the root ball about 1/2 inch or so above the ground level. Water in the new planting, drain and water again.

Welcome to the club of transplanted hydrangeas! You will not be the last person to have to transplant them. But determine first of the problem really is too much sun or watering issues plus transplant shock. Like gg48 said, if it is getting sun until 10-11am or so, that would be fine. But these plants suffer when temperatures hit 85F or higher so expect them to pout when planted so close to the start of summer or if it gets afternoon or evening sun..

Water them early in the morning, around 6-8am. If you use a sprinkler, that way thehe leaves will not stay wet for long periods of time and get a chance to develop leaf fungal infections. Instead, just water the soil only from the rootball outwards in all directions.

The plant should have 2-4" of mulch up to or beyond the drip line. That is critical as the top soil dries easily and mulch will help minimize evaporation.

Like I said earlier, expect it to pout in the first few summers, until it becomes established and develops a larger root system. Afterwards, it will complain less but it will still do some complaining during the worst parts of the summer.