Blooms start out white, begin to develop a pink hue, and then begin to turn progressively darker through the stages you mentioned all the way into the fall.

This is the case with just about all H. paniculatas, as white is the only primary color of bloom, sometimes mixed with green, with shades of red on the aged flowers. However, Quick Fire will bloom and mature faster than just about all other paniculatas, doing so as early as June.

QF is an early bloomer and a good choice. The problem with the pictures is that they may be retouched or your monitor or picture software may tweak things automatically so what one gets may not be what one saw in a picture. I have had that problem with pictures of roses too.

Mine doesn't seem to have orange in its reds and pinks. I have acid soil, but don't know if there is a subtle change in color due to pH in paniculatas since I haven't grown them in less acid soil.

There may be small differences due to weather and soil minerals, etc. I have not seen orange here per se but, there are times when in some small areas of the blooms you can see a slight color tone that is close to an orange but not quite.

Vanilla Strawberry is another example of color differences. It turns a nice magenta given the proper weather but there are some people whose location and weather are not similar enough to the one where VS was developed in France and thus it does not develop a nice magenta color in the Fall for them.

This one was planted just a few weeks ago with no blooms. The blooms opened white and are now this color and I love them!

I see what you mean... the blooms are more dense than Quick Fire usually is, but mine was definitely labeled Quick Fire. It could have been mislabeled? It did bloom early though like a Quick Fire.

Here is an up close image of my Quickfire Hydrangea bloom. This was taken back in June, and it's pink now. It's very pretty. Can't comment on the fall colors since I just got it this year, haven't seen it yet.

Colour changes of Vanilla Strawberry (like the one shown above) is much brighter (nicer) than my QF....which is more of a "dirty" pink. But it flowers earlier than the other paniculatas....so that is the trade off.

I have a quick fire and it's never gotten that deep pink/red that I've seen in photos. Then again I have it in shade so that may be part of the issue. I may move it to a sunnier place

My Quickfire in full sun (though it gets a bit of bright dappled shade in the morning) turns a deep pink, so light might be your issue. Mine is the color of yours by early to mid August, and by mid September looks like this:

Jennifer - if yours came in a Proven Winners pot it might be something like Fire Light, but that's definitely not a QF. Enjoy nonetheless!

Springwood... Thank you so much. I've been trying to figure out what mine is for days, and I think you're right. It must be Fire Light. It's gorgeous. It bloomed weeks before my Little Limes.

mislabeled, mispotted hydrangeas are all too common. I found an obviously mislabeling at a nursery and the employee there told me, with some embarassment, that "a label probably fell off in the delivery truck and someone just stuck it in another pot without a label."

Here's my QF as of yesterday morning. Once they get a little more brown (a few more weeks) I will lop off the blooms to prevent issues blooming next year.

What issues, SWG? I leave the brown blossoms on over winter (mine don't brown until a hard frost so they aren't interfering with the summer appeal of the garden) and sometimes I don't get all the brown heads removed in time. It doesn't seem to cause any issues IME.

Last time I cut the blooms off in Spring I got about 2-5 blooms. Not taking any chances!