Hydrangea is one of the longest blooming shrubs of the growing season.
I'm Erik with Landscape Garden Centers, and we're going to talk about hydrangeas today. What you're going to see is there are different size flowers. We have the conical type flowers, and then we also have a flatter or rounder flower. And so, these all have other names. Paniculata is going to be the conical type flower. And then, you also have the smooth hydrangea, also called a macrophylla hydrangea, which is also a flatter flower. The smooth hydrangea can be a hedge. That'll get to be about that three to four-foot height. The conical or Paniculata hydrangea can get very big. These can be 12 to 15 feet tall, and once they become established, you'll be able to see how big the flower is to the plant. There's also a climbing hydrangea. Then that one is they turn out to be very, very beautiful. They're insignificant flowers. Climbing hydrangea will be used best along the east side. Something, where it's going to have its roots or feet will be in a cooler soil condition. There is a type of hydrangea also that's called the Oakleaf hydrangea. And you can see that that one right here has kind of a similar shape to the oak leaf. This one has a pretty insignificant flower, but it will also have excellent fall color. There are panicle hydrangeas. They can be grown into a tree form and is a superb hydrangea to use, easy to care for, and often you don't even have to do anything by cutting them back. You can just let them be, and they'll continue to grow for you in the summertime, throughout the summer.
All of these hydrangeas can handle fully to part sun. I would not suggest putting them in a blazing saddle sun, where it's up against a building, where it's up against something that's going to be extremely warm, and where the soil temperature goes up. So where it can have its feet cooler will be best, but in full sun, they should do very well. They're developing them constantly. And so there's always a new one that's out there. The hydrangeas want well-drained soil. Well-drained soil, meaning when we put water around it, the water drains into it. And it does not sit around for days and days and start to stink. Macrophylla hydrangeas will respond to the different pH levels of the soil. Changing the pH in the soil, you could get more of a blue by lowering the pH to make it more acid, or you could change the soil to have the flower turn redder if it was less or more basic. Now what they've been doing is there's less and less of having to mess around with the soil, and they're just producing great flowers, basically engineering them to get to the correct color. So that's what's incredible about hydrangeas they're just coming out with some tremendous flowering hydrangeas that are good flowering. And then also in the fall time, like with the Oakleaf, giving you some fall color. Make sure that when you're looking at the hydrangeas, you find out which ones you want to use. We want to have left some of those stems up because they will re-leaf on those stems. Other hydrangeas we'll want to start up from the base every year, like an Anabel, you can trim that one down to the ground within four to six inches and trim those back, and then that will come back from the ground, growing out new shoots, very similar to a perennial. Hydrangeas they're very, very popular right now. The plant has been around for a long time, the smooth hydrangea is actually native to the United States. People should have no problem growing those. Look for them now in your neighborhood because they should be blooming. I'm Erik with Landscape Garden Centers and keep it growing.