Young Hydrangea Plant - Black spots all over the stem

[Return2thebasic]

Just received a young hydrangea plant in a small pot. The little thing looked really poor upon arrival. Brown and wilted leaf on one side, plus lots of blackish spots covered the main stems on the upper side.

Not sure if it's infectious to other plants. Therefore I'm not sure what to do with it.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks!

If the spots were on the leaf it would be a fungal infection but on the stems it is perfectly normal and part of the plants vascular system.
The brown leaf I would just clip off and give the whole plant a good water when planting give it a good feed with blood, fish and bone.

Do you mean the marks that you can see on the stem in the first picture? That's just normal colouration.

The brown leaf looks like frost damage - lots of that this year, the warm early spell got them putting on leaf which the cold snap ruined. As the others say, brown marks on the stems are normal. What I'm more intrigued by is the second picture - hydrangea flowers (mostly sepals I think) can be green under some conditions, but it seems too early and I've never seen that sort of form before.
What variety is it, please?

Thank you, all. It's reassuring to know I can plant it without too much worry.

@ErrolTheDragon

The brown leaf looks like frost damage - lots of that this year, the warm early spell got them putting on leaf which the cold snap ruined. As the others say, brown marks on the stems are normal. What I'm more intrigued by is the second picture - hydrangea flowers (mostly sepals I think) can be green under some conditions, but it seems too early and I've never seen that sort of form before. What variety is it, please?

It's Hydrangea macrophylla 'Glam Rock' Horwack. It's supposed to have flowers like in the picture.

Ah, right, so it's supposed to have quite a bit of green, and they change colour. But it seems too much flower, too early, for the size of plant to me.

I'm not sure, but I'd guess it may been somewhat forced to make it flower but then the odd weather has thrown its development a bit. Apparently it's a repeat bloomer so I'd consider sacrificing the flower at this stage and hope it would grow more healthy leaves. I'd want a second opinion on that though.

It looks pretty much like my glam Rock presently, I have quite a collection and they’re only just starting to putting growth on at the moment

@Tomnooktoldmeto

It looks pretty much like my glam Rock presently, I have quite a collection and they’re only just starting to putting growth on at the moment

@Tomnooktoldmeto, glad to know mine is on track. Do you think Errol has a point to nip the flower stem to boost growth? Mine came in a 9cm pot. Thanks.

@Return2thebasic mine was also in a 9cm pot a year ago, it bulked out a little but didn’t flower last year

Probably a little gentle deflowering would help achieve greater growth ready for flowering next year as Errol said

[quote Tomnooktoldmeto]@Return2thebasic mine was also in a 9cm pot a year ago, it bulked out a little but didn’t flower last year

Probably a little gentle deflowering would help achieve greater growth ready for flowering next year as Errol said[/quote]
Thanks for replying! I will try to be gentle when nipping it...

Does yours look like going to flower this year?