Good for you!! It looks to be well on it's way to a full recovery! (:

Needs lots of mulch, especially in Z9. Lack of it makes the soil dry out easily and this promotes wilting episodes (which many hydrangeas will have especially in Year 1). If you mulch it, the number of days between waterings should also incease. Since you have sandy soil in some areas of FL, consider watering 50% more than you would otherwise. For a new shrub, 1 gallon per watering is ok but I would use 1.5 gallons if your soil is sandy. The leaves have some type of fungal disease but it is not clear which. Cercospora leaf spot probably. The leaves need to be thrown into the trash when they dry out in December/January. The flowers too. Overhead watering usually triggers this infection so try to water the soil instead early in the mornings. Plant debris should also be thrown away in the trash. See the link below for more info. There is some Crape Myrtle debris on the shrub that can be disposed of too. My CMs are dropping/throwing away lots of plant stuff now too. You did not mention what insect is afoot on the CMs so I am going to guess. Over here, aphids are common. They can cause sooty mold and attract ants that way/ To combat them, you can use insecticidal soaps and horticultural oils (think: Neem Oil). Scale has also been present here on some years. Imidacloprid shows good control when applied between May and July as a drench to the root zone. Sooty mold from CM insects can also end up on the hydrangea leaves so addressing problems with the CM can help the hydrangea too. There could be other insects/snails at work. You have to monitor the shrub and look so you can find them, identify them and apply appropriate action for that type of insect. Check during the day but also during the night. Peek under the leaves. Look under small rocks in the soil too. Overall, the shrub does not look too bad for Year 1. Last thought - do not overwater if it rains so often. Insert a finger to a depth of 4" on the soil and water the soil if it feels dry or almost dry. If you see it wilting and the soil is moist, leave it alone and recheck in the morning. It should recover on its own by then (sometimes soon after the sun goes down). I usually ck mine in the mornings during the summer and water early if they look sad. Just had to do that yesterday as a matter of fact since summer lasts a long time here. Here is a link that might be useful: ACES Diseases of Hydrangea

I have ate whole habs. Numerous times, but even with my high tolerance they can be painful. The caribbean reds and chocolate habs are really gnarly. My whole head feels hot except my tongue that feels numb/ on fire (if that makes any sense). IMHO if you truly want the enjoy the flavor of the habs (which is fantastic) cooking is your best bet. I use them in anything you would put peppers in/on. Spaghetti sauce, burritos, on pizza after it's cooked (great use), chili, burgers, etc. I love hab burgers, either topped with habs, or cut into strips and mixed with the ground beef. Mmmmmmm. Just make sure to wash your hands!!! I did a lazy job of washing my hands after chopping some chocolate habs and went to take a leak 20 minutes later. Holy s--t. BAD IDEA. -HabBob

Hummingbird moths are also sphinx moths, but the ones generally called that are the dayflying sphinx moths that nectar on flowers (or rotting fruit if available), like the Snowberry Clearwing that resembles a large bumblebee, and the Nessus sphinx that is a beautiful reddish brown with two cream colored stripes across the lower abdomen. Few of the sphinx fly during the day, and most are nocturnal, as is the Tomato and Tobacco Hornworm moths. You can generally spot them at dusk, just as light is beginning to wane, or in the early morning just before sunrise. The adult moths have 5 yellow spots on either side of their abdomen in the case of the Tomato Hornworm, and 6 spots of yellow in the case of the Tobacco Hornworm moth. Their wings move just as a Hummingbirds, too, and they hover at flowers like them also. They are fascinating to watch because no other moth family does this. Moths outnumber butterflies by 10 to 1. The tomato and tobacco hornworms use Solanaceous plants for larval food, e.g., tomato, tobacco, pepper, potatoe, Datura, Brugmansia and many more. However, tomato is generally the favored food. The Tobacco and Tomato Hornworms are large sphinx moths as indicated by the size of the caterpillars. The Hummingbird moths, like the Snowberry and the Nessus, are much smaller. I find larvae of the Snowberry Clearwing on my large honeysuckle vine, and the Nessus on my Virginia Creeper, which hosts a wide variety of various species of sphinx caterpillars. They are very cool to raise. Hope this may inspire some of you to observe them in the garden. They aren't all bad. Susan Here is a link that might be useful: Tobacco and Tomato Hornworms and Adult Moths