the best hydrangeas aren’t blue

I‘VE NEVER ACTUALLY GROWN A BLUE HYDRANGEA. There, I’ve confessed. But my garden features perhaps a dozen large specimens of Hydrangea from late summer into autumn. They’re all panicle types, or H. paniculata, a somewhat-rangy breed but oh, so delightful to have around now as things wind down.

Not so many years ago, most nurseries only carried the old-fashioned classic we call Pee Gee, for H. paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ (above), with giant conical trusses of white flowers in July that fade to pink and tan as autumn approaches. Perhaps you have a tree form? It’s the kind of plant often “inherited” along with older houses, and I love passing big ones at nearby farms and gardens at this time of year.

Lately, though, as with so many other plants, there’s a proliferation of available cultivars of panicle hydrangeas, and I have tried many good ones: ‘Kyushu,’ ‘Pink Diamond,’ ‘Unique,’ ‘Limelight’ (an unusual recent color break with greenish flowers), and more that I cannot even bother to recall. Some have giant trusses, others smaller; some lacier and some more dense.

The straight species they’re all was derived from, H. paniculata, has large flowerheads like the Pee Gee, but they’re more refined, not so overblown…kind of the “lace-cap” of panicle hydrangeas. You don’t see the species on the market much, but you will find its close lookalike ‘Tardiva,’ to my mind the best of all the paniculatas. Those are its flowers earlier in the season (below). It’s been around for many years, but is finally getting more attention.

Like the two Pee Gee shrubs that came with my 1880s house, my big old ‘Tardiva’ wants to take over the bed I’ve had it in for a dozen or 15 years. Since they bloom on new wood (unlike the blue H. macrophylla types),

hydrangeas deciduous ornamental plants trees & shrubs