I like your announcement, ditas. All we are missing is a drummer drumming as you spoke, some music at the end and pictures! Ha!

We could have use some emoticons with sound here too! Hee hee hee!

Good for QF.

Thank you Luis - I should have typed in drummmm ~~~~ rolllll~~~ or Tah~~~ Dah~~~ huh?!!

I just came in from working, on pulling & reweaving all the nylon hoses I used on Tardiva#2 & hammered a stake to anchore on ... whew!!! I'm sure to carry my loppers around more, in Spring, for sure!!!

& LL ... forget him, this end of the season!!! I'll just wait for these coming sunny, dry days & let him pull himself up!!! All the efforts I invested, seem pointless! LOL!!! Too bad, 'cause he is just turning into the shy, pink-blush, before looking like Dr. Dirr's popular description of "dirt socks"!!!

Even Kyu Tree, looks pathetic with her top, chopped by an earlier storm!!! Â:(((

I am right there with you Ditas. It has rained here all day and my new limelight tree is splaying like crazy. More than half of the branches are down to the ground due to the very large blooms. I am heading out to the yard as soon as the rain breaks to see if I can do any damage control. LOL...I guess mother nature doesn't care about our hydrangeas like we do.

After all I wasn't so stupid to let QF grow 6'+ trunk.
Now it looks like a champ.
Hehe :-)

G'morning George - I was gonna say ... your QF in training, will be a stunning, red-headed, statuesque, royalty ... with all her subjects around, bowing down to her in awe!!! LOL! Â;)

I simply love her reddish limbs bearing the brick & nearly brick panicles ... oh & the glow ... she seems to have the ability to absorbed the light from 'mighty sun' ... no wonder, the name QUICK FIRE !!! Â;)

Hi Ditas!

It has been gloomy here for days now, and it even rained like crazy here yesterday... this morning, I also noticed how beautiful the Quick Fire, Limelight and Snow Mountain Tree still are! Even my Annabelle has a few new blooms too! Then my Endless Summer has multiple new buds... hopefully they will bloom before the weather gets too cold!

The Quick Fire blooms are also turning from that awful pantyhose color to more of a brick red now! LOL Limelight is also taking on a pink blush with some of the blooms now so that is lovely too.

Apart from the hydrangeas some other plants are still looking amazing, so I want to mention them (even though this is the wrong forum! LOL):

1. Double Knockout Roses - simply an amazing blooming machine!

2. All of the heucheras - I am completely converted now :-)

3. Geranium Rozanne

4. Agastache Black Adder - the blooms just look better and better and they have been there for months now!

5. Tradescantia Blue and Gold (OK, I gave it a big trim earlier and now the foliage is lovelier than ever and it is even blooming again)

6. Hosta "Fragrant Bouquet" - the apple green foliage still looks brand new and fresh. Very lovely indeed.

7. Weigela "My Monet" - wonderfully variegated foliage, still looking great!

8. Lavendar "Violet Intrigue" - this was planted this summer and it is still looking ever so fresh and new! Lovely!

OK, OK, that is enough... now back to hydrangea-land :-)

ostrich~I am a good one for getting off topic myself, great list! Phlox and rudbeckia are still doing their thing, along with statuesque joe-pye. Still blooming strong, calamintha is a great edger with hydrangeas, airy little blooms offer fluffy textural contrast. :)

Ostrich & I are notoriously, getting derailed, it seems!!!

This very unusual garden season has throne a few plants into confusion ... all of a sudden several are behaving as if it were Spring!!! Just like Ostrich's Annabelle & mine as well, are reblooming ... a few paniculatas are producing young blossoms when the rest are now turning colors! Certainly all the ES & family, have young clusters (except 1 F&E)!

Back to QF - this lovely lady is so enigmatic ... just when all her blossoms are turning brick/near brick she turns rosy-like & still with a glow ... it's either 'Ma Nature' playing tricks by doling out, these cooler, partly sunny days or QF trying to play the 'Jekyll & Hyde' character ... as long as she doesn't turn the "dirty socks" look ... she can be as enigmatic as she wishes to be!!! Â;)

I took my Cam's memory card, to be printed, just so I can see these color changes/differences in a matter of days, as dictated by sun, temp & rain. George noticed the difference in the produced redness, with the amount of watering he gave his QF. It's not easy to do an observation, as we are at the mercy of 'Ma Nature'!

In praise of QF once more ... what an absolutely, beautifully brick colour she is!!! Â;) ... couldn't help imagining her as a tree! (A Maureen O'Hara ... to those who remember!)

I clipped & gathered for an arrangement of mostly paniculata blossoms (pinking LL, Tardiva turning pink, as well, a still white PD) with a few sprigs of Russian Sage, Black-Eyed Susies, a rebloomed ES (still bright pink), a BB blossom (turning to mixed colors), green annabelles, Chelone & certainly, 3 brick colored QF blossoms, that stood out elegantly!!! ... my dau took the large arrangement to a ill friend ... what a glorious hobby gardening is ... I thought!!! Â;) ... I could kick myself, for neglecting to snap a shot, as avid as I am, at recording for posterity!!! Â:(

FWIW!