I love hydrangeas but am starting to hate them.....my 'Bella Anna' has about 3 nice blooms, my annabelle got cut down by deer, the pee gee is just starting to show about 20 buds but is in a disarray of a sprawling shape....endless summer's deserve round up and my quick fire (enabled by YOU) is the only thing really blooming.....this could be another rant in the duds.....then again I did that LOL.

But nice looking gardens, bloom or not.

SCG

That's a breathtaking display. Lovely garden!

Very nice!! I like the variety of foliage in the garden as well as the blooms. It looks like you did a great job planning for year-round interest.

Looks great...my Pinky Winky is blooming right now, strange how plants have their own schedule.

Lovely. I really need to try some hydrangea!
Beautiful house as well; love your two stories of windows looking out onto the back yard and garden. You can really enjoy the view at any time!

Thanks, everyone! I think that these hydrangeas are some of the most reliable things in my yard!!! :-)

debbiecz3, you must try some of these hardy hydrangeas - in a way, they are kind of like hostas - once you get one, you want to try more and then you start to collect more and more! Ouch.... maybe I should not scare you off right now before you try it! LOL!

SCG - put your Endless Summer in a pot - it will do much better! I listened to someone on the board here (was that rosecavalier?) and put mine in a big pot this year and it's been doing great! Give the other more time.... and your Annabelle will bounce back too! Bad bad deer.... you know that they get tummy aches after eating hydrangea, right? Perhaps it was a young bambi who has not learned his lesson yet!!! :-)

Thanks ostrich...my yard is a pretty much no coddle yard...you either produce or your gone.

Now I wonder why I have so many ex-wifes...LOL

Anyways...I have a 10ft fence up now... mostly complete and the season to eat what was eating my plants is soon approaching....yay...

I love the look of your gardens. I wish I made mine more narrow, to mimic yours. These darn 8-10 ft wide gardens take more expertise than I can offer...

SCG

Ostrich...great photos of your hardy hydrangeas...beautiful yard and love the color scheme of your house...and glad you are meeting with success re: Endless Summer.

Last year I picked up a white potted mophead from one of the box stores...I think Home Depot...and potted it up immediately. A year later it is coming along nicely with some great attributes...I think it is going to be a winner and can't wait for it to get some real mass. It's the first white hydrangea I've tried.

Its starts out a lime green, opens to a huge snow white mophead, and then ages with a few blush pink spots...foliage looks real healthy...makes you smile when you look at it.

Continued:

Purest snow white most of the summer...ages to this...enormous 8" wide mopheads that last longer than any of my other hydrangea blooms. Interesting that I didn't see them this spring in the stores.

Also, I'm finding that these tender hydrangeas are easy to propagate...just cut some dormant stems off in the spring, put in water with indirect light for a month...then pot up even if there aren't roots showing.

My problem with pots is where do I put them. I don't have a heated garage so they will suffer more freeze thaw than if in the ground. I have one tiny, tiny, did I say tiny, piece of endless summer that made it in a pot now and I am not sure what I am going to do in the fall. It is small enough to go into my tuber storage (if I get it built) but other than that I am SOL...

Until I get good at this I like tough love....live and flourish or follow Ostrich's many and be shovel pruned....

SCG

Beautiful garden. I love hydrangea and yours are wonderful. Also love the layout. My bombshell is also doing poorly, it is tiny with one bloom. I'll give it one more year unless they come out with a cool hardy hydrangea next year to take its place.

Beautiful garden photos Ostrich and I really like the look of your house as well.

'Quick Fire' does exceedingly well for me, last year my most established plant had grown to 4 1/2 ft tall and over 6 ft across. 'Incrediballs' are doing great and 'Little Lambs' are stealing the show as they always do!

rosecavalier, that is indeed a beautiful white mophead! Thanks for the pics. Do you by any chance remember what it is called? I so wished that we could grow macrophyllas in this region.... sigh!

SCG, I don't have a heated garage at all, but it is insulated. The temperature in the garage will drop to just below zero when it gets very cold outside. I am sure that will work fine. In fact, you do not want a heated garage, because you would want your plant to go completely dormant, I think. So you can still try it :-)

Also, SCG, I so wished that all of my beds are 8-10 feet wide at least, so I can do different "layering" effects with various heights and textures at the front, middle section and back! In fact, the areas of my bed where they measure 8 feet are the best looking areas. The narrower areas are the ones that I have trouble with (in making them look good!). So, I think that you will have a lot more fun with your wider beds! I just have to make do with my little city lot.... sigh!

twrosz, do you have photos of your hydrangeas please? I would love to see them please!!! :-) Is your QF in a full sun location? Where does it face? I would love to especially see your Little Lamb!

catt - thanks! Have you tried other hardy hydrangeas?

Ostrich, the hydrangeas all have a south exposure and are in very good soil.

Here's 'Little Lamb', it's well over 3 ft tall and would be considerably larger, though had been given a substantial pruning this spring, this is a FANTASTIC hydrangea !!!

'Little Lamb' up close, it's a real beauty!

'Quick Fire', is a larger even more vigorous shrub than 'Little Lamb'.

'Quick Fire' can produce some very large blooms.

Ostrich maybe in the future I will appreciate the beds as I mature into gardening but at this point I can't imagine how things are going to look because everything I have is immature. Patience is hard to find this year as well. You can also very nice huge bed, right now you call it your backyard, if you get rid of the grass :-)

twrosz very nice pics! I searched for little lamb here but it is impossible to find around here. I did manage a quick fire and am happy to hear it is vigourous.

SCG

Absolutely stunning photos here. :)

On my way out the door but I have a quick question and hope this isn't regarded as a hijack.

Does the Quick Fire respond well to pruning to keep it smaller? Will it still bloom each year?

SCG About your pots. In the fall, when I haven't had the chance to plant everything, I just dig a random hole and plop the whole pot in. Nothing has died on me yet :)

nutsaboutflowers, yes, both 'Quick Fire' and 'Little Lamb' will flower well even after rather hard pruning ... though, you might want to wait for the release 'Little Quick Fire'

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Little Quick Fire'

NAF, the reason to move them indoors was to keep them from the extreme cold temperatures which is killing them to the ground. My "shop" is not attached nor heated, unless I light the wood stove, so gets to the same temperature as outside. Therefore no gain. BUT I am doing exactly what you say with a bunch of plants.

twrosz that 'Little Quick Fire' is very interesting. It is nice to see another new paniculata come out as there as so few new cultivars on the market....LOL

SCG

twrosz, your hydrangeas are simply STUNNING! How long have you had them for?

LOVE YOUR LITTLE LAMB!!!!!!!!!!

Ostrich, I've had these hydrangeas for about five years, they do develop quickly and are very reliable bloomers.

rosecavalier, those are very nice looking hydrangea photos, I should grow a few mophead types in pots, maybe one of the new double types.

Great photos of your hardy hydrangeas Terrance...I would like to grow some but they would have to take up rose real estate ... so I've just got the tender hydrangeas in pots...and use them as supplemental color and anchors in the landscape...can't beat them for that.

I can't imagine a hydrangea breeder working on doubling mophead flower structure...do you have some new cultivars in mind?