Just wanted to mention that I DID get a lot of bloom on my two well-established Endless Summers last season. Most of the bloom was early, as Calliope said, followed by a small amount of later bloom sprinkled throughout the remaining season with some still opening late in fall. This year I got only a small amount of bloom along the brick wall side of the shrubs (as I previously posted) and NO additional bloom yet as of late August. A few branch stems do have some tiny buds. Last year I had buds in all stages of development at this time of year plus fresh opening flowers. So ES has not been a total bust for me, as macrophyllas do not generally bloom at all here (unless heavily protected or you are just plain very lucky). In an earlier home closer into the metro area I did inherit an unknown Hydrangea macrophylla that did occasionally (every 3 years or so) put out a handful of blooms for me. My ESs are on the east side of my house along the brick wall, but received no other protection and have never been fertilized, except one year when I used Aluminum sulfate (if that counts) to turn them blue. Worked pretty well.

I planted 15 of them this year. The ones in part sun are doing better than the ones in full sun but they are all doing pretty well. I have to water the ones in sun more than the others or they will wilt. My sister-in-law planted them last year and she said they needed lots of water last year but much less water this year. I've bought other hydrangeas within the last 2 weeks and after cutting up the roots some (they were pot bound), I've planted them in the ground and they are doing well. I am watering those every day.

I don't ever remember a year like this one where I have planted cool season crops one week, and started planting summer crops the next. LOL Robert, I have lived a lot of places also and when I read your post, I didn't see anything that upset me. I have visited the 'rude' places of the world, and Okies are not normally like that. We are just much more laid-back and less intense than in a lot of places I have been....unless your talking football or politics. LOL Actually, I don't even remember how my mother got her tomato plants when I was a child growing up in southern Oklahoma, but I would imagine that they were bought on the sidewalk in front of the feed store. I can remember that spring time always meant that you would see those wooden crates of onions, and containers of transplants sitting at an angle so you could see into the box when you drove down the street. Later in life, I remember that they went to a store that was in a part of the next town (Ardmore) that we never went to for any other reason, but at gardening time you had to go get the bulk seeds and some plants from that store. Our climate in the NE part of the state does not get really hot so fast most years, but does get hot. I know several people who try to get their first ripe regular size tomato by the 4th of July, and others who don't put them in the ground until May. One year a man told my DH that it was time to put the tomatoes in the garden, and we had already had 3 ripe ones that week. I had a few in WOW's and we had the first ones on the 3rd of June, but I got lucky that year. Our lowest temp this month has been 34 which is also the lowest recorded temp for the stations that I looked at in the southernmost parts of Oklahoma. Sometimes they get storms that never hit us. You would think from our northern location that we would be cold much later in the spring, and much earlier in the winter, but it doesn't always happen that way. We do normally have a lot more rain tho. I met Melissa at Braum's parking lot yesterday, and I ran in and bought breakfast while I was waiting for her. As soon as I walked in, I heard a man say, "Got you garden in yet?". I thought he was talking to me, but he was talking to the man behind me. Later the conversation will begin with, "How's your garden doing?", then "Had any tomatoes yet?" It sure becomes the topic of conversation for the old timers around here. (of course, I'm not one of the 'old timers'). LOL

Here is a previous discussion about it from over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. You'll find several other discussions there as well as reviews of Parks Whopper with the forum search there. Personally I like PW although there are many other just as good varieties. PW tends to have more issues with BER early in the season. Pull up the "favorite beefsteak" discussion on that forum for lots of suggestions. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: steakhouse tomato discussion