My 3 Endless Summer have come back very well for 2 seasons now. All I did was to apply a lot of fallen leaves and mulch over the plants before winter, and then clean up during spring. Now, the only thing that really damaged my ES this spring were the late frosts.

Are yours in a windy location? Mine are in a pretty sheltered location that faces east.

I have had my ES Hydrangea 2 years now and this year i had very little blooms and almost all the leaves have black spots on them . PLEASE HELP. I have never planted anything before and i dont know how to fix the problem. thanks Penny

all i do to protect my endless summer is mulch with shredded leaves in the fall...soon....

they come back just fine, but no blooms since early june!!! what kind of endless is THAT!

The first thing I think about when a plant is not doing well is the soil it is planted in. The soil is the "soul" of the plant. Gets its nourishment to produce a healthy plant. Next, is to ask yourself about the site....enough sun?....too much?...Endless summer requires protection from mid-day sun, so a semi-shaded area for part of the day is best. Keep it well watered (especially during hot spells), amend the soil with compost or fertilize the plant in early spring and again in early summer.

Check out this website. It references "Endless Summer" types and may answer other questions.

Cheers
Ian

Here is a link that might be useful: hydrangea

I'll tell you what I did and then decide if it is suitable for you.
First, I'm in a warmer end of z6 and only on a rare ocassion all buds of 30+ macrophyllas I grow got killed.
So, I didn't protect any of them and had no serious reason to grow ES since there are many much more interesting hydtangeas.
However, I had one particular spot in a garden where macs don't want to bloom even after relatively warm winters.
Problem with this spot is that it's in a full sun the whole winter and early spring and then become part-shaded as season progresses.
What usually happens there is that hydrangeas buds start swelling very early and got zupped by March frosts.
I planted three ES there last year and usual thing happened again even though we had an unusually warm winter.
On April 1 I pruned all three of them to 6-8" off the ground leaving two pairs of live buds on a stem.
By July they produced a lot of new growth from the old stems as well as from the base.
First bloom occured on or about August 1, 4 months after pruning, on a new growth from the old stems and since then they are in a CONSTANT bloom because new growth from the base also produced flower buds, but 1-1.5 months later than the first set.
This picture was taken last week.
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As you can see, right now I have a combo of aged (pink), semi-aged and new(blue) flowers on a same plant.
Though plants are only 2'+ tall (no wonder with such severe spring pruning) I finally made hydrangeas bloom in that spot.
How all this should be translated to z5?
Unless you want to go a long way to protect current year top growth and have a mid-summer bloom, you may instead simply settle for the late-summer bloom on a new growth and do nothing, except mulching to protect the root zone..
Before ES was invented you had no luxury to chose the bloom time.
Now you do.

ego, I found your post interesting becaue of the timing. Last April I purchased an Endless Summer that had the aged (pink-tan) flowers. I cut them off potted up the plant. Here in FL it is too warm to plant a hydrangea in April in the ground, unless of course you can stand over it with the hose at least 12 hours a day!! It has been sitting on the pool deck, only getting bright filtered light
most of the day. It gets watered when needed...alas, I have NEVER had my own flower:( I'm getting ready to plant it in the ground now, but I'm wondering what I could do to encourage some buds.

Well, there are many unknown in your story, but in general...
There are many thousands of hydrangea plants forced into bloom for the two specific commercial events: Easter and Mother's Day sales.
Those plants are not ment to be a long lived or be a good performers in a long run. They are essentially ment to be just annuals. Growers looking for one and only attribute of the plant: flowers. Therefore, by using fertilizers with high phosphorus content and other tricks they grow plants with inferior root and branch systems, but with humongous flowers that will drain out all plant's energy. That is why you bought in APRIL hydrangea with already AGED flowers.
You did a right thing by cutting them off and repotting the plant, but it was exhausted and no way it was able to produce another set of flowers. The whole summer under your TLC plant was working on establishing decent root system and be ready for the new life the very next year.
Good luck.