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BY RACHEL FOSTER
IER MA
RKE
RONT
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Mop Heads & Lace
$5
High on hydrangea.
I
NEVER EXPIRES
made a bit of a blunder in my last col-
umn (“Garden Umbels,” 5/23) by rec-
ommending purple fennel as a garden
plant. I had just submitted my copy to EW
when I spotted fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
on the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s inva-
sive species list. Having written a piece on in-
vasive plants for EW in January, I should
have known better, especially as I have seen
common green fennel growing in lusty thick-
ets along the bike path by the Willamette
River. Purple fennel is just as productive of
seed, and presumably just as dangerous.
While I was wiping the egg off my face
and casting around for a non-controversial
topic, EW’s editor forwarded a press release
about hydrangeas. As it happens, these old-
fashioned stand-bys were already on my
mind. I’m helping a friend make a new shady
garden, and hydrangeas are high on her list.
The press release itself, from Spring Meadow
Nursery in Grand Haven, Mich., is not very
relevant to western Oregon gardeners be-
cause it promotes only species hardy enough
for the bulk of American gardens with a con-
OR
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Hydrangeas …are such reliable producers of
heaps of summer color , almost every gardener
26 E. 11TH AVE • EUGENE
is likely to plant some, sooner or later.
tinental, rather than a maritime, climate. That
rules out two important groups of hydrangea
that we in the Northwest can grow very eas-
ily.
Some people will argue that the familiar
bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)
needs no promotion at all, being, if anything,
over used in the Willamette Valley. But there
are usually good reasons why popular plants
are popular. Hydrangeas, like roses and rho-
dodendrons, do so well here, and are such re-
liable producers of heaps of summer color, al-
most every gardener is likely to plant some,
sooner or later. They are particularly valuable
for their ability to grow and bloom in shade.
Some people nonetheless plant them in sun,
where they bloom heavily but need copious
amounts of water to thrive.
Bigleaf hydrangea comes in two basic
bloom styles. Hortensias, also known as mop
heads, have large, rounded balls of sterile
flowers with showy bracts in white, blue, pink
or wine red. (As in flowering dogwood, the
showy portions of the flower are bracts, not
petals. That’s why they last so long.) Lace cap
hydrangeas have flattened heads in which
showy, sterile flowers surround a central
group of smaller, fertile flowers. Lace cap
types have the advantage that the flower heads
are lighter and less apt to yield to gravity.
Some varieties of both types have blue
flowers in acid soil, pink in neutral or alkaline
soil. Use aluminum sulfate to acidify the soil
and ensure blue flowers. With the exception
of a few compact varieties such as ‘Pia,’
Hydrangea macrophylla can grow to 6 by 8
feet when well-fed and watered. The plants
seem over-large and coarse for small gardens,
where I prefer to grow them, semi-starved, in
pots. Hydrangeas make magnificent pot-
plants, blooming for years with no attention
other than light pruning, regular water and
moderate fertilization.
There is a second group of colorful hy-
drangeas that are naturally more petite. A
species (or possibly a sub-species) named
Hydrangea serrata has yielded a group of
cultivars that can be maintained at 3 to 4 feet.
Serratas favor refinement over drama. Some
books scarcely mention them, but serratas are
showing up more and more in nurseries. The
first to become widely known was actually a
macrophylla-serrata
hybrid
named
‘Preziosa.’ I think it was the popularity of this
distinctive plant that brought other varieties
to the attention of nursery people.
Serratas are a little less thirsty than macro-
phyllas and a little better adapted to sun. Most
are lace caps, though ‘Preziosa’ has round
heads of bloom that turn from chartreuse to
pink and eventually rich red. The stems are
almost black, making for a plant full of char-
acter. The color-progression is even more
marked in ‘Beni-Gaku,’ which has white,
pink and red florets all at the same time. In
‘Grayswood’ the outer flowers are white at
maturity. In ‘Bluebird’ they are blue, but not
the strong, hard blue of some hydrangeas
when they grow in acid soil.
Many people cut hydrangeas to the
ground each winter. The bush responds with
strong, un-branched stems, each with one
huge flower head on the top. I think this is an
ugly way to go, and it doesn’t seem to make
the plant smaller, as you might expect.
Pruning more lightly (in April, preferably) for
shape and an even distribution of buds, re-
moving about a third of the height, results in
more moderate growth and more abundant
but smaller flowers.
ew
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