Yes, but bring it inside after it begins to shut down and the leaves dry out. Put it a garage or protected place where you can water it once a week or once every two weeks. Then plant it in the Spring (but make sure the roots are not circling the pot).

It's too big to bring inside the house. Winters here can be quite cold. Last year extremely cold winter. Garage would probably be as cold as outside, just not windy. Watering would be impossible in winter. It would just freeze.

Woops, sorry about that, I said "bring it inside" and did not mean "inside" as in the house but inside a garage or shed-like place. Lord, my brain was asleep when I wrote that. :o)

Water it as often as you can. I water my pots during the day time on days when the temp is in the 40s or 50s (a heat wave!) and I space the waterings to once every two weeks or so.

Just out of curiosity beachbum_nj, if you do not mind sharing this info, how big was it when you bought it and how much did it retail for? I have never seen one for sale locally ever, only on mail order stores (a 3yr old shrub for $40 something... not sure how tall the selle's 3y/o CHs get though).

Did it bloom this year for you? CH is notorious for taking its sweet time at flowering.

We bought it at a local nursery here in central NJ. I have no idea how old it is but it's almost 4 feet tall on the trellis in the pot. It was already flowering when we got it. I'm pretty sure it was $25.
The average highs in January and February run in the 20's and 30's around here, and we're also right along the coast, so it's pretty windy most of the time. We keep Endless Summer hydrangeas in large pots outside all winter, sometimes wrapping the pots with insulation, and they come back every year.

It depends on the size of the pot. In most cases, I would say that zone 7 doesn't provide undo risk for leaving the plant outside, as soils do not generally freeze to any significant degree in a zone 7 climate. But last winter was unusual and container soils can freeze more easily than the ground.

I would guess a climbing hydrangea that large is in at least a 5G nursery pot. That should be fine but if it gets really cold, I'd wap the pot the way you do your Endless Summers. And you do want to keep the soil well hydrated - properly moistened soil will freeze at a much lower temperature than a dry soil. Strange but true!

Water has higher heat capacity than soil....that is why! :)

This post was edited by starlight99 on Sun, Oct 26, 14 at 20:58

I had a large climbing hydrangea that I had to take out of the garden in the fall. I put it in a large pot and left it under a larger overhang next to our house. It got some rain/snow when the wind was blowing that way, and I watered it on occasion. Made it through a "normal" winter in Massachusetts (not last winter) just fine. They're pretty tough plants.

"Winters here can be quite cold."

Mine in the ground has seen as cold as -20F over the years and never missed a beat. If it were mine, I'd sink the pot in the ground on the north side of a building and forget about it until spring.

tj