Oakleaf hydrangea - Hydrangea quercifolia

looks very good - glad they came back for you :):):)

Very nice Lauram.

And guess what, something is eating the flowers. Great. Gave them a quick spray with an environmentally safe insecticide - something called Organicide, made of sesame & fish oils - to get a head start before the storms hit tonight. Tornados expected again.....

How very scary, are you alright Laura after the storm? Hope there is'nt too much damage if it came your way!

I can't believe something is eating those flowers....I'm dealing with Oriental fruit moths on the peach trees....caterpillars on the ferns (although the Dipel does seem to be working - there is much less damage than there was). If my tomato plants are predated I'm going to have a major fit!!!

Do you have a lot of deer or rabbits down there? They love my oakleaf hydrangeas, I have to fence all of them in before winter. They are native down there, aren't they?

We have lots of deer, but strangely I've never had any of them eat the hydrangeas. I have buds already, need to start spraying soon. Last year I used a combination of fish oil and sesame oil from Home Depot and it worked GREAT - I can't use pesticides because of the large amphibian population.
They are native but I've never seen one wild. In a blog I wrote last June there's a photo of one in somebody's yard - it's HUGE!

That's the nice thing about living in a colder area, pests and diseases are far less common. Most of the problems come from the nurseries! Hope whatever is eating them finds something else to eat.

maybe you might know what this is. There's a new insect in abundance this year that I've never seen before. Sort of the color of old bronze, quite small, almost squarish in shape. Sort of cute. It has a strong smell that I don't find especially unpleasant. All the old farmers tell me that this bug is coming out of the kudzu and will be very bad for their crops. Sound familiar? I'll try to get a photo.