"My Hydrangeas Look Awful After a Hot Summer" — This Is the Low-Maintenance, Drought-Tolerant Flower You Should Have Planted Up Instead

An outdoor garden with a pool, an outdoor living room, a green lawn, tall feathered purple flowers, and ground cover.

Hydrangeas are known to be a part of summer gardens. Even on screen, the iconic Cousins beach house in The Summer I Turned Pretty, the gardens on Desperate Housewives' Wisteria Lane, and the idyllic Dragonfly Inn from Gilmore Girls feature thriving bushes of these beloved blossoms. But I hate to say, this is not as close to reality as I'd like.

In fact, planting hydrangeas front and center is a summer garden design mistake many landscape designers avoid. Purely because these flowers tend to lose water quickly, and the leaves are prone to scorching. So, what you're left with are sad, droopy blooms.