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YES! I think they hate heat and abundant sunshine. This doesn't explain my previous failures, but it explains my current one.
You know...if you think they're getting too much direct light, maybe creating some shade for them would help.
My main flower bed used to be a shade flower bed, until we had to have a big oak tree cut down, which was providing most of the shade in the flower bed.
My hydrangeas are in that flower bed. I moved my bird bath over to provide shade for one of the bushes, and made some cheap shelves (just bricks and boards) over the other 2, that I put pots of sun loving annuals on. The annuals help filter the light hitting the hydrangeas. Plus, the shelves and pots help give the whole flower bed some 'height'.
Actually it is between a fence and a potting shed on the west side of the house, so it does get some shade. Here in GA, it is ungodly hot in the summer. My feeling is that a plant that can do so well in New England, and other cold areas, just will always struggle in oppressive heat.
I have had very good luck with hybrid Hydrangeas and have found full morning sun and full afternoon shade works. Use rich soil kept moist. I prune mine annually.
Who dug up this old post? Apparently Burpee has stopped selling White King hydrangea since then. Whenever I see a post about hydrangeas, my first thought is always, what kind? It sounds like GA is trying to grow h. macrophylla.
H. macrophylla are supposed to grow pretty well down here in the south. As long as they get enough water and shade, they don't mind the heat. Unless you get one of the improved cultivars that blooms on new wood, the only thing that may harm them is a late frost. Just keep it well watered for the first year or so and you should be fine.
Mine look great but flowering, not so much. They are on the west side of the house, and my neighbors house provides too much shade. There's 3 and I'm not on that side of the house much so really don't care about the flowering part.
The most important thing is to make sure you're getting the right type based on your sun and shade conditions as well as fertilizing properly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gentlearts
Everywhere I live, Mass., Ohio, Georgia, I see pretty hydrangea shrubs, yet I never have much growing them. Why?
At my parent's house in Massachusetts... beautiful deep purple hydrangeas.
In NE Ohio, on the north side of my house. NO
Here in GA I have shade and I want to plant some. but I fear failure.
It is a case of, I don't want to let it beat me.
try a limelight hydrangea. My neighbor has one and it just grows like crazy. My hydrangeas (Serrata?) die back in the winter and get leaf spots during the summer.
I have hydrangeas, don't really like them that much. They get a few flowers but I am guilty of not watering. They are on west side of my house, shaded by neighbors house, not getting much sun. Across the street people have better luck with theirs, on the north side of their house, morning shade, all afternoon sun, is never scorching hot here in NE Wisconsin.
I have tried everything but one in front yard quit blooming all together, still grows nice but no flowers. It used to get very big blue blooms. I don't trim it but the new growth comes from the center and overtakes it so I then cut back the dead shoots from last year. When I did trim it back in the fall nothing grew. It gets about 2 or 3 feet high.
My other one in the side yard is over 7 feet tall and has hundreds of blooms, small white ones. I don't do anything to this one and never prune it or cut it back.
I put in a limelight last fall but it didn't grow, must be too shady so I will move it soon and see what happens.
ugh.
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Apparently Burpee has stopped selling White King hydrangea since then. Whenever I see a post about hydrangeas, my first thought is always, what kind? It sounds like GA is trying to grow h. macrophylla. 
