Hydrangeas: my absolute favorite!

My mom has always had the most beautiful hydrangeas.  She planted her first hydrangea over 30 years ago and it is absolutely gorgeous.  It is brimming over with the most beautiful lavender and cornflower blue blooms.

Most of the blooms are at least eight inches wide. 

A few years ago, she planted another hydrangea on the opposite side of the driveway.   As it has grown, the blooms vary in color from a cobalt blue all the way to a soft pink.

 I have never seen anything like it. 

I have planted a couple myself...and they subsequently died quick and horrible deaths, either being baked by the sun or being so deprived of sunlight, that they withered up and dwindled away.  I am determined to have beautiful hydrangeas like my mother so...

...I have done some investigating and here may be a few of the keys to my mother's overwhelming success with these beautiful and often temperamental (at least with me) plants.

1. Mom plants her hydrangeas at gutter downspouts.  They get plenty of water and when we do have a dry spell, she soaks them sporadically with a hose.

2. Plant your hydrangeas where they will have full sun either in the evening or in the morning, but not both. 

3. Last, but I am positive, not least- my mom trims back her hydrangeas every Fall but she does not trim back every branch.  The years she has trimmed them all back, she has not had as many blooms the following Spring.

I have a strategy now, and I am hoping for the best this time.  I think the hydrangeas are too : )