Category Archives: PLANTS

PANICLE HYDRANGEAS

Some of the least fussy hydrangeas of all come into their own in mid-summer. Hydrangea paniculata is a staple of many summer gardens where the gardener wants masses of flowers with little upkeep. Gardeners reference these plants many ways, calling them by different names in different locales: “PeeGee” Hydrangea, Panicle Hydrangea or Panicled Hydrangea. By any name, these shrubs are gems. Some of the newer cultivars are real superstars in my borders.

 

The pale flower heads of panicle hydrangeas make a huge impact when the garden is bursting with the hot colors of summer. They provide a serene backdrop that shows off the yellows, oranges, purples & reds of black-eyed Susans, daylilies, coneflowers and roses that explode in the heat. Panicles soothe.

 

“Panicle” refers to the cone shaped flower heads that generally cover this deciduous shrub in creamy white or pale green in mid-late summer. The flowers on many varieties fade to varying shades of pink as they age. The flower heads are popular for floral arrangements. They can be used either fresh or dried in everlasting bouquets. They are popular in holiday decorations – dried panicles tucked back into the branches of a Christmas tree provide a lovely ‘snowy’ effect.

 

Panicles are not the old-fashioned pink or blue round mophead hydrangeas that likely grew alongside your grandmothers back porch in the South. Those hydrangeas are still lovely and worthwhile but they need shade and moisture-rich soil to thrive. They really need water!

 

Panicle hydrangeas like the sun and they need it to flower heavily. They can grow well in partial shade – especially if conditions are dry. But they actually handle dry soil & drought conditions very well once established.   Water regularly the first season or two to get the plants settled if rain is minimal. But after that initial year or two of settling in, you can expect that panicles will likely thrive in hot, dry conditions.

 

They need little pruning – usually it is sufficient to simply cut out dead wood. They are unique among hydrangeas in that they can be trained to a tree form. When grown as a tree, it is important to prune out suckers as soon as they emerge to retain the tree form.

 

Panicle hydrangeas are hardy in Zones 3-9 and bloom on new wood, so late season frosts rarely impact summer blooms.

 

There are many excellent hybrids of panicle hydrangeas available. I grow five cultivars currently and have a total of eight plants. My two favorites are relatively new cultivars – Limelight and Little Lime.. These two are especially heavy bloomers in my garden and they are popping up everywhere in public gardens and landscaped areas.  

 

Limelight is a large shrub that easily reaches 6’-8’ tall and wide. It is loaded with pale green cone shaped flower heads. Limelight can grow even taller when trained as a tree – and it trains well to tree form, though it will be easier to purchase one already grown as a standard if you want that tree shape immediately.

 

Little Lime offers the same abundance of pale green flowers. Flower heads, however, are more rounded than those on Limelight. Little Lime matures at 3’-5’ and is ideal for a smaller yard or under a window.

 

A new cultivar I’m growing for the first time this year is Sugar Puff. This little plant was available for the first time in my area earlier this summer and is offered as an HGTV endorsed cultivar. Sugar Puff is reputed to be even more compact than Little Lime. Sugar Puff literally covered itself in small snowy white blooms in my garden. It should mature to about 2’-3’ tall and 3’ wide.

 

I like these smaller panicle hydrangeas as they are so suitable for pots or to tuck into the landscape somewhere you want reliable low maintenance mid-summer blooms, but can’t really handle a mammoth 6’x6’ shrub.

 

I love, love, love the look of the smaller panicle hydrangeas in pots on a deck, terrace,walkway or patio. Here’s what I like about them as container plants:

 

  • Bloom for weeks and weeks nonstop
  • Less demanding of water than containers filled with annuals
  • Good for hot, sun-drenched locations or locations that get morning sun
  • Create a major impact immediately
  • Cost less to fill really large containers than annuals/perennials
  • Can be planted in the garden at the end of the season for long term enjoyment

 

I am growing Sugar Puff in a large container on a sunny deck and it’s done remarkably well there. I am noticing, however, that it does need consistent water for the flowers to remain looking good. If it gets too dry, the flowers begin the turn brown.  Growing new cultivars in containers the first year allows the gardener to become very familiar with each plant’s unique needs.

 

I am also growing Little Lime in a large pot on the same very sunny deck. Little Lime is a larger plant and in a larger pot in the sunniest, hottest part of the deck – much less protected than Sugar Puff. Think baking afternoon sun for 6+ hours without any shade cover whatsoever. It, too, has needed some extra watering, but while its leaves have drooped at times, its flowers have not faltered or turned brown and remain a lush, cool lime green

 

I grew another Little Lime in a pot on the same deck last year in the location where I am growing Sugar Puff this year. It did not burn and needed very little water even though the summer was the hottest and driest on record.

 

Both of these specimens will be transplanted into the garden in the Fall. I’ll make sure Sugar Puff gets less afternoon sun if the site is especially dry.

 

If transplanting into the ground is not an option, I have wintered over specimens of Limelight and Little Lime in pots outdoors in the past in Central Virginia and Northern Virginia. They’ve need no protection and have thrived year to year in pots if given some fresh soil and potted up to larger pots when needed.

 

I’ve heard very good things about two other small cultivars: Little Lamb & Bobo. Maybe next year I will try one of them on a pot on the deck. Since Little Lime seems to be my ‘control’ group against which I am judging all other small panicles, I will likely get another Little Lime and pot it up as well and do a bit more ‘research’.

 

Other cultivars I grow include Fire & Ice (which has the added bonus of fragrance) and Chantilly Lace, an older cultivar. Fire & Ice ages to a rosy red, Chantilly Lace remains very white. Both are larger plants. Neither bloom as heavily as Limelight, Little Lime or Sugar Puff in my garden. But they put on nice displays.   If I had to replace them, I would use Limelight.

TAHITIAN GARDENIA

Last January, on a vacation to the Keys, I saw a Tahitian Gardenia for the first time. I loved it on sight! Its fragrance drew me in like an intoxicant and I knew I had to have one. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know its name. But I had to have it.

 

I searched and searched and finally found a reasonably priced 3-gallon plant up near Delray at a home improvement store. It came home with us on the back seat of the Honda.

 

Since it grew outdoors in Florida, I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t be insect infested. That first night in Virginia, I sprayed it with bug spray and watered in some systemic pesticide, wrapped it in a sheet and put it in the garage. It stayed in the garage 48 hours since the temps outside were not below 40 and the garage relatively warm. Then I brought it indoors.

 

I kept it in our unheated sunroom until I could put it outside on the deck in late April. It did great inside, never got bugs nor dropped a leaf.

 

This gardenia is a gem! It has NEVER stopped blooming since January. It’s produced hundreds of huge 5” creamy white single blossoms since we purchased it. They perfume the air and hold their fragrance when cut. And it keeps putting out more buds.

 

It’s gotten bigger and will need transplanting. I’ve been waiting for it to stop blooming before repotting – but it looks like its going to keep on blooming. I’m looking at all the large planters I have on my deck and considering which one I will transplant this new favorite into at the end of the season.

 

There are very few plants I winter over – just one good sized standard gardenia and a couple of small citrus. But this Tahitian Gardenia plant is a keeper and is worth the time and effort it will take to drag into the house for winter and out to the deck for Spring/Summer/Fall. It asks for little – it cannot take weather much below about 45 degrees and it drinks water constantly – my guess is that if it ever dries out it will die.

 

I watered it carefully initially, as I didn’t want to overwater it. But it is very happy sitting in a bucket of water in the blistering summer heat, so it’s care is easy enough for almost anyone. I’ve given it a very little bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer, lots of water, sun and heat this summer. It is thriving. It did equally well in the unheated sunroom in February where it was sunny & ~50 degrees. It’s one consistent demand seems to be water and a lot of it. Otherwise this is a happy, easy plant that delivers abundant flower and fragrance.


 

NEW PLANTS

One of the real joys of gardening is that there is always a new plant to discover. I will never have enough land, enough money, enough time or enough energy to grow everything that catches my fancy, so the discovery of something new to grow is a perennial pleasure.

 

Every year, I eagerly look over all the new award winners written about in the various gardening magazines I read. And I make a list of those I want to study and purchase –IF the real live plants look as good as they appeared in my magazines.

 

This quest for certain cultivars sends me out to nurseries & garden centers early and often until I find what I’m seeking. Inevitably, I will read about something one year that doesn’t appear locally in my area and it gets put on my list the following year.

 

This year, I was captivated by the newer ‘black’ leaf crape myrtles…especially those with very pale flowers. I wanted Moonlight Magic or Black Diamond Pure White – both offer nearly black foliage with clear white flowers. But I settled on Black Diamond Blush, which should look more like apple blossoms when it blooms. I bought this plant early this season and hope that it will bloom later this year or next year. I’m crossing my fingers that the label was correct and that this will have a near white bloom.

 

Normally I buy crape myrtles and other blooming plants in full flower so I know what I’m getting. I have many lovely plants over the years that were mislabeled and bloomed in a different color than desired. But the only (near) white flowered/black leaved crape myrtles I found were early in the season at a large home improvement store and there were very few of the Blush variety as it seems most gardeners prefer the reds and pinks. So I broke my cardinal rule and purchased a plant not even in bud.

 

Along with the new cultivars, I often come across a plant or two in a nursery or botanical garden that I’ve never noticed that catches my fancy. This year, Vitex (commonly called Texas Lilac or Chaste Tree) and Valerian are two plants I am growing for the first time.

 

Valerian is in a pot on my deck and I’m loving its spicy clove scent. But I doubt I’ll be buying more of this plant as it is taking a LOT of water to grow well. It will be hard to find place it can thrive here.

 

The vitex proved difficult to find. But I just kept my eyes open and looked for one wherever I happened to be. I finally found one on sale this week. I’m not going to try to transplant it in the burning July heat. So, it will summer underneath the huge old maple in its pot until Fall. Then we will plant it. I keep a ‘nursery bed’ in the maple’s shade against the fence for latecomers and pots of trees/shrubs I am growing from cuttings.

 

Every once in a while, I hear of a brand new hybrid I can’t wait to grow…and can’t find — despite my best efforts! This year echibeckia is that elusive plant I could not find. It will be on next year’s list. I read about this cross between Echinacea and Rudbeckia this year, but have found it nowhere. Since I grow scads of echinacea and rudbeckia in my garden now, this hybrid cross which sounds amazing, really intrigues me. I will grow it as soon as I can find it.

 

Sometimes new plant adventures come when least expected. Last January, on a vacation to the Keys, I saw a Tahitian Gardenia for the first time and loved it on sight. I finally found a reasonably priced 3-gallon pot up near Delray & brought it home with us in the car. Wow! I kept it in our unheated sunroom until I could put it outside on the deck in April. It did great inside and never got bugs or dropped a leaf. (I did use some systemic pesticide on it.)

 

That gardenia is a gem! It has NEVER stopped blooming since January. I’ve had hundreds of huge creamy blossoms since I purchased it. They perfume the air and hold their fragrance when cut. And it keeps putting out more buds. I’ll need to pot it up to a much larger pot at the end of the season.

 

This Tahitian Gardenia plant is a keeper and is worth the time and effort it will take to drag into the house for winter and out to the deck for the rest of the year. It cannot take weather below about 45 degrees and it drinks water constantly. But it’s not fussy about over watering, so anyone should be able to grow it if they can supply light, warmth, water and a little food.