Well, I am not sure about the symptoms. If all you are seeing is leaves wilting, that sounds normal. Any newly planted hydrangea that is planted in the summer months will suffer obvious signs of transplant shock as it is hot and its root system got pruned to fit in the plastic pot and cannot absorb as much water as it probably wants.

To make sure you are not watering too much, water it 1.5 gallons of water when a finger inserted to a depth of 4" feels dry or almost dry. And make sure it has 2-4" of mulch up to the drip line. When temps moderate in Fall, give it 1 gallon. When the plant goes dormant, you can go down to watering once a week or once every two weeks depending on how much it rains. And obviously, if the soil freezes where you are then stop watering.

Paniculatas like FL can handle lots of sun but again, it is recently planted, it is the middle of the summer so, it might feel better if you get a chair or umbrella and give it afternoon shade. As it becomes established in your garden, the symptoms will be slowly reduced.

Thank you for your feedback I really appreciate it!

It is a bit worse than just the leaves wilting. The flowers all died and dried up (except one small branch on the bottom but it looks as though it will go as well). The top 3/4 of the canopy the leaves have wilted to the point that the leaves crumble if you touch them and they blow off in the breeze. The "new wood" it grew this year also looks pretty brittle.

I thought I would be OK planting it this far in summer because we still haven't seen temperatures in the 80s yet (it doesn't really get too hot where we live, I think the hottest we saw last year was 85F).

Do you think it is just the heat combined with transplant shock? I will be home here really soon and will take some pictures.

Here's some photos:

I can see dry soil on the pictures so it has probably gone thru periods of dry soil then moist then dry again and so forth. Maybe the top soil also got water but the lower sections did not. This sometimes makes the root ball repel water instead of absorbing water.

Also likely that the root ball is on the dry side too. This makes the leaves wilt at first. Then the plant -at some point- decides it cannot get enough water for the blooms and browns them out. As the root ball gets less water than needed, the leaves start to go; in your case, this is probably aided by windy conditions that make the laves look papery while still green. The root ball then becomes hydrophobic and repels water.

For starters, I would put the hose on the root ball so it slowly drips water on the root ball directly. Set this as slow as it can go and let it go for an hour or so. Alternatively, extract the plant from this location and dunk it in a pot full of water and let it sit there until there are no air bubbles coming out (they can stand being water for long periods but the root ball's soil may fall apart if you leave it in water for ??? weeks). Then replant it again. This will moisten the root ball and make it absorb water again. After the root ball dries out a bit, the soil in it tends not to absorb water easily and one has to drip water on it extremely slowly or dunk it and let it sit in water for a few hours.

When you put it back again, add 2-4" of mulch and set up a program to test the soil daily for moisture. For 2-3 weeks, ck the soil daily in the mornings using the finger method. When the soil is dry or almost dry then give it 1.5 gallons of water and make a note in a wall calendar to indicate that you watered on that date. After 2-3 weeks, review the notes in your calendar and try to determine how often it was being watered. Then set your sprinkler or drip irrigation (or hand water the soil) 1.5 gallons of water on the same frequency (say, every 2 days or every 3 days, etc).

If the temperatures change 10-15 degrees and stay there, you can use the finger method again for 2-3 weeks to see if you need to tweak things.

Windy locations or sandy soil may be also causing the plant to loose moisture thru the leaves faster than the leaves can absorb water thru the roots. If it is windy, you can put a barrier to deflect the wind or water early if you know ahead of time that tomorrow will be windy. Once summer is over and once the plant develops larger root systems, it will do better albeit hydrangeas always have to be checked during the worst part of summer.

Sandy soil requires 50% more water than I specified above and, when you have sandy soil, it would not hurt to add organic compost to the soil so the water is absorbed by the compost and does not drain out thru the sand. So when you replant the shrub back, add compost if the soil is sandy.

The dried out flowers can be removed. Unless you want to keep any blooms that are still alive and not dried, I would prune those too so the plant does not have to channel water to the blooms this year and concentrates on developing a new root system asap.

No need to fertilize this year. Besides, your plant is stressed so now would definitely not be a good time for that. Your potting mix probably had those round fertilizer pellets and they will last fr the rest of the year. In Spring, two weeks after your avge date of last frost, give it -only once- 1/2 to 1 cup of organic compost, composted manure or cottonseed meal. Then some coffee grounds, liquid seaweed (foliar feed) or liquid fish thru June. Stop these weak and any other fertilizers by the end of June so it will go dormant at its proper time.

Check the soil moisture level right in the rootball that came from the nursery. Sometimes it dries out and is difficult to rewet due to the composition of the potting soil. Adding a single drop of mild dish soap to a couple of gallons of water will help with this. Water slowly and deeply like from a trickling hose as Luis said or a couple of gallon jugs with a small hole near the base if it has dried out so the water has a chance to soak in well. Luis's suggestion of mulch is important to maintain even moisture. All new plants need a lot of attention to water management.

Often new plants need some shade until they are established, so I use temporary shade, usually from lawn chairs set to provide dappled shade in the hottest part of the day or you could drape fabric over the railing if that is south of the plant. At two miles up the sun is really intense due to the lower air density, and it tends to be drier as well, so you might want to consider part shade for this plant if it perks up with good watering and temporary shade but looks like it is struggling next season. You also probably want to move it out a bit from the railing since it looks really close, though that is difficult to judge in photos. It can get to 6' in all directions, and you want to be able to do maintenance on the railing.

Don't give up on this plant for now even if it seems like it hasn't survived. It may resprout from the roots. It will survive zone 3 without problems, but it needs to make it through this summer first.

Plant still has healthy coloration. If it does not respond to water I would suspect overwatering is an issue. Cheers from 1000 feet. lol

Hey everyone, Thanks so much for all the great advice!

Luis- you were definitely right... it was getting watered kind of randomly and I was letting it get a little dry before watering (every 4 or 5 days or so, we were told to do that to avoid over watering).

So first thing this morning I put the hose on just a drip and let it sit for an hour or so (we were a little nervous to up root and soak it since we already caused it so much stress but will if it doesn't respond) and I'm feeling pretty confident that the root ball is accepting water now. I will make sure to get a better watering schedule set up.

Also have a few bags of mulch that I will top the soil with tomorrow. And thank you for the advice on fertilizing it organically! That's the only way my wife and i go:)

NHBabs- thanks as well! My wife went out today and set up a large umbrella to help with shade (we're trying to really baby this plant:).

I was wondering about the dish soap idea. Do you think some yucca extract would serve the same purpose? I got some great yucca extract from a friend this year. I was only wondering because my wife just brewed her famous compost tea and I would hate to hurt the beneficial bacteria.

Springwood- thanks for bringing up over watering. My gut tells me Luis is right, I think it was a lack of water but I will be sure to keep a very close eye from here on out:)