Hi Beth. Welcome! I use Fish Emulsion as soon as I can get my plants outside as a preventative on any possible sucking insect and it works for me. I spray with it at least once a month now and more so before I bring them in for the winter. I have no pest issues with the trees I treat except for mites after a long period indoors if the winter is extremely dry and cold, which it has been. Too, I forget to treat a plant or two before bringing them in such as my Olive Tree because I left it out way beyond my other plants and it will get attacked by mites which can spread to surrounding plants. At least every other pest that seems to attack many others trees such as Mealy, Thrips, and Scale are not a problem at all and I thank the Fish Emulsion for this. Now that I can't spray with F.E in my home, I have to watch for mites at least since especially towards the end of winter. Now I have been using Rosemary Oil because they are indoors, and the stuff smells good too and it has done wonders for my trees. Not a one mite damaged leaf to be found after a month on any of my plants and just because I don't seem to have a problem anymore, I'll treat again once a month until I can stick them outside again to be safe. Then once outside, I'll start using Fish Emulsion again. :-) Mike

I purchased a 50 lb bag for 25$ and find it works for: reducing the baldness that comes from outside on my dog and cat. Works wonders. I am also putting it in their food for Tx for worms. I am currently using it on my horses for the same. However, it ruined my veggie garden by warding off my pollinators. How sad! I got one zuke and 3 yellow squash only. We have those japanese beetles that have so many offspring I had to try something. I had not even gotten 1 zuke in past years. The diatomaceous earth is food grade and edible. Supposidly it is pure silica, and it is good for hair, nails, and worming! It doesn't kill the ants, but makes them move. I have been herding them out of the front yard and have way less that in previous years. I bought a duster to use on the lawn, nothing is going to help with this seasons numbers of fleas. Oh yes, got 1 apple per tree, only 4 peaches on two trees? Of course I applied to the trees! It does kill the black power on my gardenia. I guess it is trial and error?

I don't think it is either too much sun or not enuf water - I think what you are looking at is cold damage. Open flowers on any type of bigleaf hydrangea now in the PNW is an indication that the plants are either greenhouse grown or from out of state. And the OP indicates these are NOT greenhouse grown plants. At my nursery, we get a lot of plants from California that are well ahead of our local bloom season - hydrangeas here do not start blooming until the end of June or early July. If they came from out of state, they may have not had sufficient time to become acclimated to our colder climate. And our PNW spring weather has been colder and wetter than normal - a relatively mild frost about a week and half ago nipped all the CA hydrangeas we had on the nursery floor and they ALL have an appearance very similar to the OP's - purplish foliage and crispy flowers and leaves. And while it may be warmer daytime in the WW-Milton-Freewater than it is here in western WA, I'd be willing to bet nighttime temps are still pretty chilly. If it is cold damage, they will come back from that rather easily, although you may need to trim off the damaged portions.

gfleatham, I've been enjoying the info on various hydrangeas you've been adding and appreciate the accompanying photos. Any chance you'd be willing to add your zone & general location to your profile so that they post by your name automatically? TIA Houzz doesn't make it easy to figure out how, so here are directions: Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone. You add info on your state or the nearest large city since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures. Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.