Where are you located? Where I am I couldn't overwinter in a container and would heal it in wherever I had room in a sheltered spot.

Can you put a link to this big root pouch from Amazon? I am curious....

Zone 7b. Should be okay. I still have a couple of Green Velvets (planted alot in pouches 2 years before I moved into the house) and I just huddle them together and give them a leaf blanket. Maybe it's placebo, but this year, the Green Velvets seem to grow faster/more growth per inch (on these slow growers) than the ones in the ground.

A good bakers dozen plus leaves has shrub leaf spot and powdery mildew. Just short of removing them, anything else one would do...tons of plants probably sitting too close in the yard, etc, etc. This one just had a few here and there. Alot of the others macros I had seen, and paniculats were far worse.

Silly enough, I was at this nursery yard around a month ago and everything was looking fab...

How much were you charged for a 10G by the way? It had to be over $100

Springwood...probably somewhere in that range. Truthfully, I did not really look at it - as if I did, I would not buy half the stuff I buy....sorta like the sensiable part of me kicks in ;-)

New Hydra in the pot. Boy is she heavy. Plan to just mulch her in to overwinter but I've put boxwoods in similar fare and they do fine overwintering in 7B. Due to the size of the hydra in the pot already, just short of vertical stronger canes, I'd be curious to see how it develops width wise....

I spray a mix of milk and water on the leaves and stems. Try 40% milk or stronger... weekly or so.

OMG, Not sure if it's the recent heat wave of 90 degree days we recently got, but the new repotted/transplanted Bloomstruck has got buds all over. This is my 1st new wood blooming Hydra and I'm keeping my fingers crossed, that it will bloom like the ES I've seen on other properties.

OT or ON, how many years once in the ground do you think it will take off in height/width or nice stongish stems. I'm proposing possibly replacing this with a nicely size 60+ year old mophead. This new ES, has some nice strongish yet small canes, about 8-14inche long. I have not really eyeballed the inside that much but did peek in just to see how it would grow

Should I risk over-wintering my ES outdoors in a pot - Zone 7B. I've overwintered green velvets in similar style pots (root pouches) for 2-3 years and they were fine.

I took my bloomstruck and surrounded it with all the empty 15G pots I had from the veg garden. Piled on a healthy dose of lawn leaves for safe measure. LOL, if I find some old bed sheets, I'll knit her a tent.

I think I should be okay, or better safe than sorry and bring her into the garage.

You may be ok but consider that a La Nina Event may develop this winter per forecasts. Be on the lookout for typical La Nina conditions in your area. It may be colder/warmer/normal temps and it may cause more/less/normal precipitation.

Heh. When do the forecasters ever get it right ;-)

Really. It is very hard to plan using those "new" hour-by-hour forecasts too. I think they start getting accurate about 2-4 hours before the time and otherwise "move" forward/backwards too much.

On Sunday morning, I went to IHOP early (before 6am) for breakfast. A large family group showed up with the kids in baseball uniforms. They said their game had been moved back 2 hours due to rain hitting the area. So they came to IHOP to eat breakfast. The game change was done late at night, the night before, using those hour-by-hour forecasts but as they were about to order, they got a phone call saying that they were going to have the game at the original/regular time. They all got up and had to leave in order to make it there on time (it was about an 1 hr trip).