Over winter here in Florida my hydrangea shrub became a bunch of sticks. The stems lost nearly all their leaves.
January
After all danger of frost – around the end of February – I cut the stems back removing the old leaves. There were new leaf bud growths already forming along the stems.
February, after cutting back
Attempting to Propagate a New Plant
In the photos above and below I have placed a rock over a low hanging stem. I’m hoping that roots will form so I can cut this part off and plant it creating a new hydrangea plant!
Rooting a stem
This hydrangea is growing in a nice shady location beneath a larger shrub. It seems to be happy and now I’ll just wait for the flowers.
All I’ve used for fertilizer is some bone meal and fish emulsion.
Some people love the uniqueness of green hydrangeas and some wonder why their bright blue blooms fade away to ugly green. Everyone is different. But if you wonder where green blooms come from – they are seldom found in nurseries – the answer is they come from blue blooms, and sometimes from late in the season white-flowering plants (Blushing Bride).
The Limelight hydrangea can also have green flowers, especially in early stages of growth. It’s flower is elongated in shape so it is different than the blue macrophylla, big leaf hydrangea, I’m writing about here.
Walking through Home Depot the other day I came across a small display of potted hydrangeas. Because I have been wanting to see how hydrangeas do in this southern climate, I splurged and bought it. It cost around $12.00.
New hydrangea plant
Difference Between Indoor and Outdoor Hydrangeas
This potted plant is meant to stay in a pot and be grown indoors. It has probably been growing in a greenhouse and has been babied along with attention and fertilizer and whatever to make it bloom. This helps to get it sold. But once the plant is home and the blooms have gone by, then what? Well, I have no experience with growing potted hydrangeas.
In New England, where I learned first hand about growing beautiful hydrangea perennials in my yard, the plants I bought were large and flowerless. I bought them in Spring or early Fall and planted them in the ground. They were meant to grow and thrive outdoors. Each year the plants grew larger and would provide pretty blooms in summer. Each winter they went into hibernation and came back to life in Spring.
Limelight Hydrangea – August 20th, 2014
I don’t know what to expect from this new little plant, or how it will do in my Florida yard. I won’t be keeping it in the pot because potted plants demand a lot of care.
Read my update on how the flowers changed color and what is happening now that it is in the ground.
At Home Depot I spotted a table with small hydrangeas for sale. I call it a “greenhouse” hydrangea because I imagine that is where it came from. The price was around $12 as I recall, so I bought one. Now I know these are not like the hydrangea plants I purchased in New Hampshire to plant in my northern yard.
The tag on this one said it “likes cool nights” and it’s climate preference is 50-70 F. That’s what “cool” is in Florida. It’s also listed as a Houseplant. This plant obviously can’t take wintering in a dormant stage over several months. Growing hydrangeas this way is new to me.
Found this hydrangea photo and good information on one of my favorite photographer’s site. I never grew pink hydrangeas like this one. It has fun little pointy petals. Pete kindly allowed me to re-blog here, so enjoy! And go see his photos… they are stunning!
I have always loved Hydrangeas. My Nan and Grandad grew them at the front of their house, and so did my Mom and Dad. It’s amazing how when you see a certain flower they bring back such wonderful, precious memories. Because of my love for the abundance of showy blossoms this popular shrub produces, and because of the fond memories, I have grown Hydrangeas in my garden for some years. Although, for the first time ever, I made the most silly mistake of pruning then at the wrong time so I did not get a single blossom last year. But this year, they are back again, and in splendour.
Here are a few facts about this colourful flowering shrub, some I already knew, and some I didn’t.
Hydrangeas go back a long way, and were here before we were. The oldest fossil finds discovered in America go back 40 to…
In 2011 I bought a house and began to fill the yard with perennials. Â I had a lot of cleaning up to do, as the gardens were pretty ugly – but not as ugly as the house! Â In between fixing up the inside of my home, I spent time beautifying my new yard.
That first summer was spent clearing away old growth and garden edging, but in Spring 2012 I was ready to buy some perennials, and one of the first shrubs I wanted was the hydrangea.
It is now 2015, just three short years later, and I thought I’d share pictures of those plants, and their offspring (propagated plants). I also want to post an update to acknowledge my favorites, problems, etc. to share with readers.
First, the Blushing Bride, hydrangea macrophylla. The pictures below were all taken in August, 2015. The first is the original shrub I bought from a local nursery. The next two are pictures of the two I propagated from the original. I planted them last year, and as you can see, they are almost as large as the original. In fact, one of the ‘babies’ is blooming, and the others are not.
These are beautiful shrubs, with large green leaves, and I highly recommend this perennial for the yard.
Blushing Bride – original shrub
Blushing Bride propagated plant
Blushing Bride baby #2 – no blooms this year
The blue-flowering hydrangea, ‘Endless Summer’ is pictured here. It’s not flowering much this year, but I blame the bad winter. There are two small flowers at the bottom. I think in time, as it ages, this will be a more beautiful shrub. I also cut down a larger bush that was preventing it from getting sun. That may help with blooms next year.
Endless Summer
Please see my next post and read my review, with pictures, of two more hydrangeas, the paniculatas – the Pinky Winky and Limelight – which have elongated blooms.
Hydrangeas Blue 