Hi Luis, that's just what I do.. peel the leaves back and run my finger and thumb along the leaves ...it works but with about 12 plants that's a lot of work... in the end beautiful plants

Ed..curious..do you heavily prune your arborescens hydrangeas?..if yes when?..early spring?..my Annabelles look fine to me and I don't do much to them..just remove dead or damaged branches etc..but I have a sad thin Bella Anna ($3 from Home Depot) and am considering giving it a "haircut" to see if it improves..have nothing to lose so I will probably do it..your Invincibles(?) look nice..did they always?

Hi Nichols, I prune back to about 2' in mid April... the pinks in the above picture are inv1...pickup a couple of inv 2 last yr

Ed..I'm gonna try it..I was out today (was perfect) picking up debris but it IS still Feb and too early I think for any shrub pruning..

Yikes! I just started a handful of Annabelles. Hope this is not a problem here. My friend did not mention these icky critters and so we will see. Your plants are really beautiful Ed. Just think, if I get the buggers, you can visit and squish them for me and then go salmon fishing on the same day! lol

They are not "everywhere". So for example, in my current location of Tx, I have not run into them (yet). But if you get them over there, hmm, I can see you salmon fishing and then salmon feeding whatever you do not use! Hee hee hee!

Ed, your hydrangeas are beautiful. What are the pink varieties in the 1st and 2nd pic? Sorry if you already mentioned it.

I am in Canada, just north of Toronto and I have had this issue for the last 2 seasons....mostly on our INVINCIBELLE, but even on some of our BOBOs (albeit to a much lesser extent). I did find that BTK did help. This season I will apply it much earlier.

Happily I have not seen these in my garden. Now if only I could do the same to the deer that frequent my yard waiting for the times rain washes away deer repellants or the times I don't get new growth covered.