Is my Endless Summer Bloomstruck Hydrangea healthy or am I doing something wrong?

Question

I purchased it in this pot from Home Depot in April. I check it daily and add water if soil feels dry. I water until it drains out the bottom. It gets morning sun and afternoon shade. I don't know if this is normal or if I am doing something wrong.

Answer 1

The plant looks healthy enough IMO, though it looks as if it will need a bigger pot next year.

It is normal for hydrangeas to have some "green flowers". The most obvious part of hydrangea "flowers" are not the actual flower petals but the sepals protecting the true flowers.

The sepals tend to turn green as the flowers age, or if the plant is in bright light (and of course in the northern hemisphere this is the time of maximum daylight).

Some hydrangeas have white or green flowers (and those colors are stable), but other varieties vary in color from pink through green to blue depending on the soil acidity and the amount of aluminum (which creates the blue pigment) available in the soil.

Most "general purpose" potting compost mixes do not contain much aluminum, so I would guess the compost had been treated to produce blue flowers before you bought the plant.

You can buy soil additives to get either pink or blue flowers, but don't try to change the color in the middle of the growing season, otherwise you may end up with weird flowers that are half blue and half pink. That doesn't harm the plant and it won't recur in future years, but it doesn't look very nice!

Answer 2

The foliage on the plant looks reasonably healthy, but the blooms are fading. I don't know how long those particular blooms have been in place, but if it's a few weeks, it's time to deadhead, unusually for Hydrangea macrophylla varieties. Endless Summer hydrangeas are a newer variety which should keep producing new flowers throughout summer, but according to this link https://www.gardenia.net/plant/hydrangea-macrophylla-bloomstruck, they do need deadheading to encourage new blooms.

There are one or two withered tips to the leaves though, which suggests the plant is not quite being kept sufficiently well supplied with water, so you likely need to increase watering. You can check by pushing your finger down the side of the pot into the soil to see how damp it is or not halfway down now, though I wouldn't recommend doing that often. As the pot has drainage, even if you over water, the excess will just flow away, but be aware that if the soil in a pot is dry all through or in the centre, any water you apply will just run straight through, without it being taken up completely by the soil and root ball of the plant. If you find the soil is dry halfway down, take the pot off its plinth and water the plant thoroughly while it's sitting directly in an outer tray or bucket or something and leave it for an hour or so, then remove it and let it drain down and replace on the plinth.