Hydrangea

3/19/2016:
Here are a few pictures of this hydrangea. The bushy picture is from August 2015. It definitely made it from Kroger to my yard! The next three are from March 2016. Thankfully we had a very mild winter and it survived. I didn't consider the hardiness of the plant until now. We are expecting some freezing temps over the next couple of days. I will be covering this bush.

 This is a closeup in early March.

 (Taken on a rainy day - color is weird) This was March 19, 2016. You can see that some of the buds up the stem are showing life. I'm going to cover the plant the next few nights because we are expecting freezing temps.

This is early March, 2016. You can see some green sprouting from the ground.

I bought a foil wrapped hydrangea from Kroger for $3 (discounted from $25) around Mothers Day. It looked something like this (below - not my photo)

Here it is today (June 4, 2015)

I clipped the flowers and some leaves when they began dying. At first, it looked like the whole plant was going to die, but soon little leaves began sprouting from one of the branches. Yay. I transplanted it to the pot about 2 or 3 weeks after I bought it (after I noticed new growth). Soon new growth was appearing on the other two branches and at the bottom of the plant.

I'll put it in the ground sometime in August or September. Its sitting in the place I've selected now just to see how it does. The spot is about 20 feet from a large tree, but gets plenty of morning sun. Shade from the tree comes around 3 right now. This spot will allow my hydrangea to grow as large as it wants.

I've used my homemade fish emulsion (minnows and water) and miracle grow on the plant. I am going to put some aluminum sulfate in the ground well before planting along with plenty of compost. Assuming I will keep it in this place, I'll start preparing the plant's home soon.