Thanks for showing which FL hydrangea you meant. There is a macrophylla with an extremely similar name! The paniculata you are inquiring about was created to compete with Hydrangea Vanilla Strawberry's many shades of pink. And FL does have very nice shades of pink. The blooms start white as usual but they then quickly turn several shades of pink. It is advertised to have strong stems but to me, take that with a grain of salt… the blooms near the top appear to grow upright although some bloomage in the bottom part of the shrub bends or drops down a little, most likely because the panicle blooms are large & the bottom stems are small, young and sometimes cannot yet keep the bloom upright. It seemed that blooms were denser in the top half of the shrub than in the lower half. But do not misunderstand; it does not look bad or ugly (it looks very nice) but I wanted to point that out as some people prefer not to have any flopping whatsoever period zilch nada. ;o)) Ha! Other paniculatas flop more than the FL pictures I have seen. It does not require any special care, just what you currently do to any other paniculatas. Keep the soil as evenly moist as you can (not wet). Fertilize once in Spring with composted manure, organic compost ½ to 1 cup of cottonseed meal or a 10-10-10 general purpose, slow release fertilizer. Amend the soil with aluminum sulfate, garden sulfur or greensand if your soil is alkaline. Paniculatas are the most sun tolerant of the hydrangeas so, in the northern half of the country, it will do great with more sun… even full sun once it becomes established… like in the northeast or where the summer sun is weaker. Down where I live, it requires less sun (more shade) to not scorch the leaves, more water in dry times and may dislike the long hot, dry summers when blooming. I killed mine though… it came out somewhere around 2014 and one local retailer shocked me by putting it for sale the following Summer. My winters are mild but, a drip irrigation issue did not give it water in a dry winter after it was planted in the Fall. Probably not a problem for you? It is not a compact shrub when in bloom (due to the big blooms) but it is not large like other 10 footer paniculatas either; I was told a standard answer from the plant label. I think 4-6’ but I never got to find out for sure. ;o( Being a paniculata, it should be very winter hardy. The dark red stems reminded me of a mophead called Lady In Red. The blooms’ color blended well with the dark red stems. Vanilla Strawberry, its compact Strawberry Sundae, and Zin Fin (sp?) also produce a good show of pink-shaded blooms as well.

Cheryl, where are you generally, both nearest large city and state, and USDA growing zone? Location influences how these are best grown, with Luis’s TX location is quite different than my northern New England location. Where I am, I grow them in all day sun and never water after the first few years when they are getting established. I am one of those folks who isn’t fond of flopping stems, and like to check out plants in person (or look at lots and lots of photos) to see how upright the blooms are held.

Generally, however, panicled hydrangeas like ‘Fire Light’ are easy care for much of the US and really long blooming, lasting 3-4 months where I am, starting in early to late July (depending on the cultivar) and lasting until hard frost. ‘Fire Light’ is one of the mid-sized cultivars of panicled hydrangea, so plant it where you have room for it to grow to 6’ in all directions. Or choose a larger or smaller cultivar to fit the space available. IME these aren’t easy to control for size by pruning because they regrow rapidly from a hard late winter or very early spring pruning, and summer pruning would remove flowers or the flower buds. I have 4 different panicled hydrangeas and they are some of my favorite plants. I never do any pruning to mine and they look great, but some folks do prune theirs. Most years I do remove the old flower heads in late winter, but even that isn’t needed.

Wow, great info. Thanks guys! May I also get your thoughts on “Pillow Talk” hydrangea? I believe they are more shaded bush. I intend to post a picture of my placement area when I return home.

I live in sw va. So I believe we are zone 7. Blacksburg area

It is a similar paniculata, a tad taller though. Advertised a lot for its shades of pink but it starts lime first, then white/off white and theeen come the pinks.

https://www.bluestoneperennials.com/HYPT.html

Some of these guys are hard to compare unless a local plant nursery has them all in stock. Then you can see the blooms and look for differences... as well as noticing the differences in the shades of pinks.

I was on the same website. -haha They are pretty

These r the options. Thinking of yellow or green areas for hydrangeas. Husband is thinking green areas closer to house and morning sun. We have golfers and want privacy and color. I was thinking of the yellow areas closer to golf side. Any thoughts?

Those look like maples, which are thirsty plants with a lot of dense surface roots. It is difficult for anything to grow well under them or even very close. Do you like the amount of lawn there? If not, consider pulling the hydrangeas up closer towards the house a bit, remove grass at least 3’ wide, and after planting give them a wide band of mulch. Leave enough room between the trees and the hydrangeas to run the mower.

Be aware that Bluestone’s shrubs are just rooted cuttings, quite small, and may do best with the coir pot removed gently or at least slit down the sides and the plant potted up for a season in a one gallon pot and then planted in early fall when temperatures are cooler and the root mass is larger. They do stand by their guarantee, so if they arrive in poor shape you can get replacements. If you can find them locally as a one or two gallon you will get more bang for your buck, so I would check to see if one of the local big box store stores or nurseries has any and compare prices. IME with panicled hydrangeas, with decent soil and moisture (keep them watered the first couple of years) they grow fairly quickly. My Quickfire grew from one of those tiny Bluestone cuttings to about 5’ in 5 years, with the first season growing in a pot. QF is much lacier than the ones you are considering, but starts blooming before Independence Day here, and would start earlier for you.

The other thing to note is that in areas with hot fall weather color may not develop well. Are you up in the mountains enough for cool autumn evenings?

I said Blacksburg Va as I felt no one would be familiar with Riner. Ir is at the foothills of Floyd Mtn with an elevation of 2034 feet. Yes, I think r late falls are cool eves. Husband doesn’t want to mow under trees. Currently we are fighting horrible Poisen oak, sumac there. He has been reclaiming feet per year. But it is wicked. Every year we pay to have it weeded and raked. Then I try to keep up with it but am highly allergic. I don’t think he would agree to come up in the yard with the shrubs. But maybe we can find another place for them and another option for privacy by the trees. I appreciate you’re thoughts.

Realistically, I can’t think of any plants that will grow well and densely under maples, between the shade and the root competition. If you want a privacy screen under the trees, invest in a few fence panels and stain them a darker color so they don’t stand out visually in the shade. I hate to see you buying plants to try growing under there that won’t survive.

There are frequent questions about this on the shrub forum, along the lines of “What plant will make a good privacy screen when planted under established trees?” The answer is always that nothing will grow densely in that kind of shade, and that if you have maples, it is almost impossible to get anything to grow well within the drip line. If they are oaks or another deeper rooted tree and they are limbed up enough so light gets under them, you may be successful, but limbing up the trees will reduce your privacy for quite some time, which sort of defeats the purpose.

Sorry to not be more encouraging with your plan for screening plants.

NHBabs - I greatly appreciate the advise. It’s not what I wanted to hear of coarse but needed.

NHBabs - your hydrangeas are beautiful.

Husband said, most of ours are Buckeye, oak and ash trees. We have very few maples and their r not close. - yay ?

I have gardened under oaks and they have deeper roots, though I would still plant at the drip line rather than under the trees for light and plant density and bloom for the hydrangeas. I have no experience gardening under ash or hickory, but you might ask on the tree forum as to how shallow and dense their roots are.

Tree Forum

Nice job hyed

I have a couple of firelights , and unfortunately the deer were out in full force this year and ate up almost all of buds. The couple of buds that were left did flower and the flowers did turn color so i'm hopeful that this hydrangea will deliver what it claims.

Nice looking plant, Hyed.

Thanks gg& Babs .. we’ll see what a few-years brings... again not getting any younger ...every year is fun

Very Beautiful

Fire Light today

#3

Hey, Ed, you are showing up as HU-55447767, not as Hyed. But I recognize that deck!

And those Limelights on the other side :-\

Here's mine! One of my very favorite hydrangeas, it blooms earlier than Limelight, though not as early as Quickfire. Beautiful hydrangea.

I realize this is an older thread. But I treated myself to a fire light tidbit today and thought I would see what the experts were saying. It is a beautiful plant. It is hot as heck here so I'm leaving it in the pot until Fall so I can control watering better. If I find a large outdoor pot that I like I may pot it up. However large planters are expensive right now. We will see what August brings.

I wanted to purchase some of these, but just like the Annabells...every one of them were all flopped over at the nursery.

To those who have these, has this been your experience...flopping?

No flopping on my Firelight shrub, but terrible flopping on my Firelight trees, I have no idea why there is a difference and I’m so disappointed. the blooms on my Firelight Tidbit are still developing, so it’s too soon to tell if the rain will make them flop. My Annabelles look as bad as they’ve ever looked, hanging their sad heads from all the rain we’ve had. Between her flopping blooms in summer and the leaftier larvae in spring, I don’t know why I bother with Annabelle. :-(

Lmc thanks and so sorry to hear, that is very disappointing! Maybe the branches just need to bulk ap a little?

I have thought about that happening with my limelight standard. The branches are so thin I have to wonder how they will support the blooms. Buds are forming now so only time will tell.

You can see my concern as how thin they are...

GHo -

It get's better with another year or 2. Yours looks still newly planted.The new growth comes out thicker, stronger BUT....multi rainy days + big bloomheads will still lead to floppers.

Alan I planted it last year. I‘m thankful it wasnt in bloom during these extreme rainfalls we’ve had. I have no doubt it would have flopped and most likely caused breakage.

Thanks for your input. I will keep my fingers crossed and patiently wait...

I could tell by the leader if not just the amount of branching she was a baby.....it's inevitable. IME, the blooms hold well until the fall summer-fall rains come in. Even on established ones, -rainfalls- with periods of dry out is fine and they remain VERT. It's the 2 day all rain day events, water soaked heads, that causes the flop on the thinner ones and depending on how long those heads are soaked, IME, they stay flared for the rest of the season.

Easy fix for your young one. Get 3 long stakes. Tie off some high up each stake. When it rains, the rope will just continue to keep the branches up. I've definitely done that with great sucess.

Based on the branching I see, next year, IMO, prune lower so the flowering starts on a the thicker portion of the stem - aka, in your pics, the left most stem, I would have pruned it to start on the initial 3 branching and to 3 bud eyes per (depending on the distancing of the buds)

ok so let me see if I‘m understanding...

Would I prune at the yellow line above say the 3 red buds like pictured?

Yeap.

Great...thank you so much!!

One more question please. Do you think it would be best to trim off blooms for this winter just to be safe? And if so would it be ok to further prune it early spring?

It blooms on new wood. I leave the blooms for winter interest. In spring, the buds are very obvious to the eye - just look for them and prune as needed. The lower wood is thicker - stronger and you will still get a easy 4 footer coming out of that bud eye as it establishes more.

Re: bloom-safe question. Staking or more staking never hurts..

This is on my radar now . On a 3 year old fully established (I removed the stakes and it was well rooted in - or so I thought). Last summer, we got one of those late summer/early fall remnents of a tornado. My LL tree totally got uprooted and was laying on it's side.

I re-staked it on both sides, and don't plan to remove them for at least another 3 years. And if I get another forcecast of -tornado rainy weather (I lost a good framework branch on one side), on my radar is to cut off each bloom to reduce the top heavy weight before the storm rolls in. Talk about over the top OCD mitigation eh.

I would have never considered this at all, since it was well rooted, and winds are winds....but it sucks losing a primary framework branch.

Oh wow!... thank goodness you were able to save it. I would have been devastated.

I must be ocd too then as I would be out there cutting away also if that kind of storm rolled in. These trees are too gorgeous to lose.

I did stake mine on both sides also. I took out one side and the twine as I have delphiniums planted there also and I got tired of looking at it. I will replace it again this fall.

I’m looking forward to seeing this beauty for years to come!

Good luck with yours...hopefully you wont see anymore storms like that! I really appreciate your help, thanks again.

(Good thing this is an old thread as we did a good job of hijacking it lol)

BTW, love the branching/framework of yours. Out here, out LL trees are grafted. No clue why. My older LL are not, but the recent ones are. -all of them- are like grafted. at all the nurseries around. I asked one of the head nursery guys why, and he said something to the effect that growers just prefer to bud@X height, grow@X height, consistency. etc. I haven't gotten around to it this year, but hearing his response, I was a smidge encouraged to give it a shot and buying a LL hedge and trying to make a treeform. Another side project on the long laundry list of things ,

What do you mean they are budded?

Im guessing chopped off with no actual branches?

Typo'ed. Correct it. They are grafted. The graft point is a bit lower than I would like. Going to make a guesstimate statement - I think the graft is around 3' or 34'. It's too low IMO. And the branching/framework is a bit -different- since it all starts from the graft point

I only got a this LL tree as I went looking for firelight tree, none in stock and I was not in the mood to come back empty handed . LOL

oh ok gotcha lol.

I really liked this one as it was taller than others I have seen and nicely shaped (framework). They had two, unfortunately the other had some scarring on it. Its a good thing actually, as I most likely would have come home with both....

@a1an , thank you for all of this information! How do you tell if a standard is grafted?

@GardenHo_MI_Z5 , I think your tree looks good and plenty sturdy! I wish I had paid better attention to the branching framework when I bought mine.

I purchased two Firelight trees last year and one has taken a major hit - the left side broke off when a squirrel jumped on it, and other branches snapped under the weight of rain-soaked blooms. Is this tree done for, or will any main branches grow back? They were expensive and nearly impossible to find; the same nursery no longer sells them. Here is a close-up of the broken off main branches followed by a pic of the tree now. Thanks!

Yours appears -natural- . Grafted is very obvious. It's a nub/graft point at the tip. That holeeeeeee on the the left does not look good, but I presume it has skinned/barked over by now.

IME, you may get a small branch that may grow out that side occasionally but it will always be weak, thin . IME, all the energy focuses on the strong branching you got there. If it bothers you enough, I'd say rip/replace it - mailorder a LL tree since you said local is hard to find ? Life's too short to hope/wait that a good strong branch will replace it. As time goes by, with the existing branching you have, and the subsequent new branching you will get, over time, once it leafs out - it's not -that noticable-.

Thanks, a1an. Limelight trees are easy to find, but Firelights are impossible. My two Firelight trees are on opposite sides of a walkway, so having one Firelight and one Limelight opposing one another “does not compute“ in my symmetry craving brain - different bloom times, different colors. Not sure what I’m going to do…probably wait out this season and see how they both fare. If both become problematic, I may replace them with Quickfire trees.

When I looked for the FL standard, I realize it was early in the season for production. It may be just a production thing.

-I'm kinda_ glad I didn't find a FL standard in the nursery. For my own taste/eyes, I like the whites primarily - don't think I would have like the white/pink/slight reds in the paniculata world. I'll take one in purple tho ;-0

GHo/Lovemy. Circling back on this thread.....

I did my * 2022* pruning on the youngest LL today. The interior canopy has the strongest branching / new wood comes really strong and will hold the blooms all season vert.

On some of the younger branching, it rained the other day and it's raining today. I surveyed what stems I will want for next year to continue forming the framework *which will get cut down some in spring*, and I removed the beautiful bloom off of it. The blooms filled up 1/3 of the garbage can. Siggghhh

I did not do this in former years and let Dwarnisim choose it's course. What happens IME is stems stay weighed down and don't recover. They remain either in the funky downward curve (either curve down or it does this downward curve and then a U turn back up) instead of being nice straight and vert.

I do this as once the bloom is cut, instead of the stem being weighted down and not recovering later in the season, the stem reverts back vert. Also, it's also -pre mitigation- should that stem snap later in the season with the continued rains in fall and the heavy bloom

I kinda consider this my early -2022- pruning/shaping strategy.

Don't do it on everything, just things I want to aid in shaping.

Hi a1an, thank you for this! I have started paying better attention to my Limelight and Firelight trees with all the rain we’ve been having in Michigan….like you, if a stem is drooping and it’s one I want to keep, I remove the heavy bloom and the stem springs back to its upright position. It’s certainly hard to lose those beautiful blooms, but it’s not as bad as losing primary branching structure! This is something I wish I had learned earlier. Ah well, better late than never…

LMY -

Just learned a new weight reduction method yesterday and it's not as drastic as deadheading. No pruners needed as well.

I was deadheading my blooms as well - pending some nasty weather approaching , and switched to just removing the center floret of each bloom. I was using my pruners but as I was reaching 7 feet up to -pull- the stem down to remove the bloom, it turns out no pruners are even necessary. Just stick you hand in each bloom and you and just snap off the center floret. Granted 80% of the the bloom profile is gone, but what remains is a -white semi circle-. It sure looks better than a bare stick.

What remains is the side florets, which are smaller and all that -potential wet weight- is gone at the tip .