Hello...wish I had good experience with this plant to share, but I had one plant for about 4 years and moved it a couple of times, but it was such a poor performer for me, I finally shovel pruned it. But I usually got some flowering but it was not spectacular and it didn't last long at all. I was quite surprised after reading many references to it's long bloom period. I hope you have better luck with it than I did. I have no experience with alpaca poop, but if there is a lot of nitrogen, it might give you a lot of foliage and few blooms. Are there any other perennials that have also been given the alpaca poop, that are not flowering either?

WHen I move a plant, I try to do it really early in the morning, I dig a big rootball, replant, water well and then I cover the plant. If it is really big, I have a huge cardboard box with extra holes. If it's a small plant, then I use a pot with holes in the bottom. For small seedlings, if I change my mind and want to replant them, I cover those with vented plastic baskets. This has worked for me - no plant stress and no stress for me. Carrie

Wilting indicates a moisture problem, usually a lack of water. It is extremely common during the summer for obvious reasons and may or may not be related to the problems with blooms that do not open. So monitor the water and make sure that the shrubs have 3-4" of mulch to conserve moisture (the top of the mulch will look dry but the bottom will be moist). Add the mulch up to or slightly past the drip line. You can monitor this manually using the finger method. Remove a little of mulch and then insert a finger into the soil to a depth of 4". If it feels almost dry or dry then water and mark that you watered on the calendar. Test daily for a week or two until you observe a watering pattern developing. Then set the sprinkler to water on the same frequency. If the temperatures fluctuate, repeat the finger test for a week or so and tweak the sprinkler if you need to. As the years go by, increase the amount of water since the shrubs will be bigger. Hydrangeas in full sun up in the north is common. In the south, the shrub's leaves will fry though. The only thing to worry about in this scenario is that the sun can help dry out the soil so monitor this specially during the summer and mulch, mulch, mulch. If your hydrangeas were getting too much sun, you would see the leaves in contact with the sun turning completely yellow or white (and browning out after a while). Browning of leaves at this time of the year suggests lack of water. Browning later in the fall would be due to the plant going formant. It is a good idea to water accoding to the finger method otherwise you can end up watering too much. Wet soil, for long periods of time, causes root rot. Ironically, one of the symptoms of root rot is wilting because the rotted roots cannot supply the shrub with enough moisture.

Ostrich, I have Never Alone in a terrible spot and it is being smothered by weeds, so this would not be the most accurate report. I checked today and at least its still there! The blooms are long lasting, at least a week. I had some good years in the past when I was taking better care of the bed, I’d consider it a miniature rose, the tallest it reached was about 18” high.