Hello, Lauri. How have you liked the rains we had since you wrote this message too? If you blink, you might miss some of these rain bands. Hee hee hee! My goodness, the lakes must finally be back to normal.

As long as the soil drains well and water does not puddle around it, you should be fine. My oakleafs are not complaining... or at least not yet. Part of the reason is that they awere placed as understory plants so the trees above are diverting some of the rain aways. But I hear you, at some point, too much of the that moisture could leech in.

If needed be, you could temporarily put it in a pot -assuming it is not huge- and replant it later on -and hopefully elsewhere too-. In other words, think of this as if you were transpanting the shrub elsewhere, just that "elsewhere" is a pot. So, if you see signs of trouble like wilting or a lot of water pooling many times & often, move it to the pot, prune any rotted roots and hope for the best. You could also monitor the soil by inserting a finger into the soil to a depth of 4" and see if the soil is wet. But don't do this right after the rains. Test the soil about the same time after each rain has stopped to get a better idea. If too difficult to do due to work/etc, then ck always in the mornings or afternoons if it has not rained for 5-6 hours.

I had an Alice that I lost to a similar rain spell from an El Nin~o Event in the late 00s, I think. The area where I planted mine was shaded under a maple tree and water seemed not to accumulate there. But, I had just moved into the house and had not had a LOOOOT of rain so when El Nin~o started sending rains weekly, the area had water accumulating. Eventually I had some work done on the back yard to correct this issue but as a safety precaution, I plant compact oakleafs because they would be easy to move into pots should their area still flood somehow.

All of my oakleafs are under huge oaks so no standing water and as they re 6 to 8 feet no moving them!!! They are understory plants and once established can take a lot of dry but not standing water.

Wow, 8' sounds pretty heavy to me. The only solution in that case would be: "hey, Scotty, can we use the Star Trek Transporter to beam up the hydrangea directly into a pot???" Hee hee hee! LOL! Oh me, it has been a long day...

Lauri, I amn not sure where you are located but the National Weather Service has begun issuing Hydrologic Statements for several DFW counties (Tarrant, Dallas, Denton) so keep an eye on things as this indicates saturated soils, especially near rivers and creeks. Of concern now is the west fork of the Trinity River in Fort Worth but other areas are also noted. You can view this info on weather.com