I haven't grown one but have friends that live in SW Denver and they have a beautiful one that blooms every year. it's white and they got it from family in Iowa. They transplanted it when they moved and it's done great.
Good luck with yours. Theirs is on the east side of their house.

I have three huge white ones that do great for me. They are on the north and east sides of the house and get morning sun only. I actually tried to get rid of #3 several years ago - dug to China! - and it was back the next year huger than ever. Pretty unkillable in my experience. Best of luck with yours.

There are a lot of different hydrangea cultivars, some of which will not hold up to the aridity, rapid temperature fluctuations, and the wind. So I'd get them from a local nursery, not just choosing one from a catalog and mail-ordered from some nursery in Georgia, or a big box store.

Mine came from Echter's Nursery, it's supposed to be pink or blue depending on soil acidity. I think the white ones do better here personally. This is the type I grew up with back east.

I thought hydrangeas liked acidic soil, which a lot of us do not have here in CO. Did you amend the soil?

Less sun is better than too much, TM. I had a white one (here when I bought the house) in front of my house--south side--almost all day sun. It seemed to grow well--I kept it pretty wet, and for the first couple years it developed unbelievably huge flowers. Then, invariably, we'd get a pretty heavy rain, which would saturate the flowers, and they'd break off and be GONE! After the first year I had it caged, and tied when it got taller than the cage. The (beautiful) flowers bent and broke anyway! Just too much weight for the thickness of the stems when they got rained on.

07.02.07 (Memories!)

07.11.07! (The morning after the night before!)

07.11.07 - A few of the flowers where I tried to hang them in the garage to dry them

It was just too painful watching them grow and start to bloom, and spending all the time trying to keep them "safely" tied up---and then standing in the window watching them bend over one by one when it started to rain!

I asked a friend (Cheryl from Paulinos) if she wanted it and wanted to come over and dig it up. She did, and we took a couple hours to dig it up one nite. It was in the most god-awful clay I had ever seen--Cheryl kept commenting as to the "quality" of my soil!, and the rootball was so heavy that even with the two of us we couldn't carry it and had to drag it over to her car on a blanket!

Surprisingly, the clay didn't seem to intimidate it--though I think it would have greatly appreciated better soil! It was spreading a lot, but I think (and this is just my theory) that being in too much sun made it develop weaker/skinnier stems for some reason. She planted it in mostly shade, and from what she's said so far, it's doing much better for her--she's never mentioned the flowers breaking over. I need to remember to have a look at it next time I'm over there!

So, I doubt that yours is having a problem because of lack of sun--unless it isn't getting any sun at all. Just to be sure, I definitely recommend supporting it with a peony cage or some other sort of caging. And I think the chances are that you can expect it to bloom pink more likely than blue. If you're lucky, you may get a sort of lavender if it's a blue variety. To get the true blues you really would need to have an acidic soil, which I can pretty much guarantee you don't have out here. ("Blue" roses are the same. I have a "blue," and I'm surprised by how lavender it looks, but it's NOT blue!) In this case, tho, the acid soil has to do with the color of the flowers and not with whether or not you can grow them. It may take a couple years, but keep in mind that it will start to spread by suckers at the bottom eventually. When it gets as big as you want it to be, plan to control it before it gets too out of hand by removing the suckers right away as they develop, and before they're able to become well rooted. If you keep it in mostly shade, I don't think you'll have any problem growing it. And they really are WAY cool when they bloom!

Beautiful when they bloom! Post some pics for us!

Skybird

Hoping to get something this year out of it. It gets about half day sun, but it's the hot afternoon part, which it may not like. I'd love the blue, but I know about the ph factor. Mom had the blue and it's so nostalgic for me to see them. Well, we'll see, won't we! At least it lived through the dry winter, that's encouraging.

I was told quite awhile ago to get the Annabelle Hydrangea for Colorado, which I did.

We recently moved and I dug out some starts prior to putting the house on the market (since they can be hard to find and expensive). Do to time constraints, I literally stuffed them in the unamended clay soil and they came up the next year fine.

Get the Annabelle and you'll be rewarded with flowers galore.

I have just planted 4 Annabelle's in a shady spot next to the house. 3 have bloom areas, the 4th does not. Does anyone know whether some plants do not bloom and if it's a pollination issue. The plant looks healthy oath wise and I am hoping may develop blooms later.