What's going on??

I have had this Limelight hydrangea for 3 years, it was very small when I bought it and has slowly been getting bigger, but it's still pretty small. The whole plant has kind of twisty, thin branches, but now there are two straight, thicker stems standing straight up. The leaves on those are larger than on the other branches, but are definitely from the same plant. What's going on? Is that how it's actually supposed to be? Should I leave them? It looks pretty funny, to tell you the truth!
Thanks for any info anyone can give me....I love hydrangeas, but am quite the novice!

I have a shrubby honeysuckle that's doing the exact same thing--seems like some plants once they decide to grow will put out long branches like that. With my honeysuckle I'm waiting to see if the rest of it starts to catch up and if not I'll eventually prune out the odd looking branches.

It may need more sun because it looks kind of sprawling. Not sure about the tall stem other than it may be trying to reach more light.

When I first started planting hydrangeas, I was very scared to plant them in full sun. I bought 6 LL hydrangeas this year and planted three in Part sun and three in full sun. The three in full sun are not suffering any ill effects at all - they are flourishing. The three I planted in part sun are performing well and are flourishing. But the full sun LL's blooms are HUGE and the leaves have no burn at all. I also have four Pinky Winky hydrangeas and the one that receives the most sun has huge blooms and the other three are pretty but have smaller blooms. So paniculatas seem to like full sun. They do fine in part sun but seem to perform way better in full sun. I keep my ES hydrangeas in Morning Sun and afternoon shade.I planted two Incrediball hydrangeas in full sun - no burn and nice blooms. I am zone 4 in the southern Minneapolis/St. Paul suburbs. That is my humble experience with my beloved hardy hydrangeas.

One more observation - the limelights I planted in full sun have a blush pink now on some of their gigantic blooms. I didn't expect that - it is just gorgeous. About stem flopping, they don't seem to sprawl and flop too much. Maybe a little on the lower stems, but they seem to rebound great.

This message was edited Aug 20, 2011 7:35 AM

It could be just because it is young and the branches are not getting thick as yet. Also could it be tyhe small limelight there are two.