Bobo is the only dwarf I have, and I love it! Have you seen the picture of Bobo posted by Rouge in this thread? It is beautiful! https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5802055/show-us-your-fall-colours#n=51

Thanks Mazerolm, that's a great example of a well shaped Hydrangea paniculata. I wonder if it grew that way naturally for Rouge without any help from him with pruning? How about yours, how long have you had it and what do you love about it?

I only planted mine early this summer, and it was loaded with blooms. The blooms stayed a beautiful shade of white-Cream right up until frost, then they started to turn pink like rouge’s plant. I read that it’s one of the earliest bloomer, which for me is a big plus. Here’s mine, after a few hard frost. They had started to turn brown at this point:

Thanks for the photos...yes....loads of blooms. That's going to grow in and be quite a specimen there. Hope it continues to work out the way you want it every season. And amazing that you can get a shrub wtih that much bloom in zone 3! I love plants that are hardy to colder zones than mine.

Some of my hydrangea blooms turned ugly brown before the frost. I'm thinking it might be because of not enough water. I've tried not to use the sprinkler too much this year and I have dry conditions due to a lot of trees. But there was no evidence of an impact on the foliage of dryness, so I'm not sure. My oakleaf hydrangea always has ugly brown dead blooms by the time the foliage turns a beautiful red. Otherwise, I love oakleaf hydrangea.

Bobo has not done well here - too sunny and too dry where I planted it....? I expect plants to survive without much fussing; if they can't, good-bye... :-) How do you use the hydrangeas in the garden - e.g. as a stand-alone specimen or as part of a bigger mixed planting? In our garden, they are elements in mixed plantings, so flopping is not too much of a problem if it brings the flowers down to the level of other companions. Have you tried any H. serrata? The smallest hydrangea here is H. serrata 'Tiny Tuff Stuff'. It is TINY and has been more like a perennial in growth than a shrub - it disappeared into the foliage of taller companions for several years but this year popped up and flowered well - no flopping for this one; just very small:

'Little Lamb' is a H. paniculata that is on the small side - it does flop but that is fine in its location as it bridges the space between tall hydrangeas and perennials at the driveway end of the garage bed. A clematis also weaves through the hydrangea shrubs. The 'Little Lamb' blooms white and then fades to pink in the fall. The following pictures were taken at various stages of the growth and various years. In the July 2 2017 picture you can see a couple of blooms on H. arborescens 'White Dome' in the bottom right of the picture. I like this one as it blooms before the others and is interesting and somewhat unusual.

July 2 2017:

Aug 20 2016

Oct 21 2019

On the other side of the 'mums in the above picture is another small H. panniculata - 'Bombshell'. It is a bit floppy too but fits into the perennial plantings there along the edge of the driveway. This is a very messy picture but you can see the fall color of it (it blooms white and then fades to a lighter pink than 'Little Lamb' - you can see the 'mums and the 'Little Lamb' in the background....):

One big advantage of the pannicle hydrangeas is that they bloom on new wood so you can prune them quite hard in early spring and they will still bloom for you. The mopheads that bloom on 'old wood' are way too iffy here so I don't grow any of those ones. I think with hydrangeas you just need to figure out what their growth style is and put them in an appropriate place to take advantage of it. Floppy doesn't matter too much if you do that.

Woody, I also focus on trying to find plants that don’t need fussing. The new ‘Little Lime’ that I added the past two seasons, are actually in a full sun mixed bed, with roses, perennials, grasses, lilies, and mums. There are spring bulbs too. Since it is my only area with full sun, I pack in all the sun loving plants I want to grow and there seems to always be something in bloom. I tried for four season, but it’s more like 3 seasons.

I have other hydrangeas in a shrub border in conditions that seem more like what hydrangeas appreciate - half a day of sun, facing east. Mostly mopheads that don’t always bloom well. I forgot I had hydrangea in full sun, I was distracted this year, but next year, I’ll probably try to give them more water.

No, I haven’t tried the serrata variety. That’s a nice photo. What is the evergreen growing there? Lots of nice photos…

I tried H. arborescens ‘Annabelle’ and the flopping was way more than I was happy with and I gave it away. Especially since I had it in a foundation planting. Yours fits nicely in that border.

In the Oct 21st 2019 photo - the pink flowers is ‘Bombshell’? Very large blooms!

Yes, I love that the pannicle hydrangeas bloom on new wood, but I find even the mop-heads that I don’t prune at all, still don’t bloom well. [g]. Do you prune your hydrangeas hard every spring?

You grow a lot of hydrangeas? I suspect you have a lot of part shade, like I do. Do you ever try to add a hydrangea in full shade?

pm2 - there is no evergreen in the picture with the Tiny Tuff Stuff :-). I think you’re referring to the ‘Carol Mackie’ daphne...? It does leaf out early but is not evergreen.

I’ve never grown ‘Annabelle’ but the ‘White Dome’ is nice with interesting flowers. It’s planted amongst the big ‘White Moth’ hydrangeas along the garage so the stems are a bit tangled together. I prune it fairly hard in the spring - supposedly it can be cut right to the ground but I’ve never cut it down that hard. The buds green up early so it is easy to look at them and choose where to cut. It’s stems are very pale so it is also easy to distinguish between it and the White Moth stems.

There are two Oct. 21 photos... The first one - with the darker pink panicles - is Little Lamb. In the second picture, the paler pink panicles in the foreground are Bombshell but you can also see the darker Little Lamb in the background across the path. Bombshell’s summer flower colour is white.

Your mopheads that don’t bloom well are probably suffering from winterkill of the buds...! A common problem with them whenever the winter is too cold - which is most winters here!

I do some shaping pruning on the paniculatas in spring but it’s usually not a too hard pruning unless I’m deliberately trying to develop a sturdy wood structure on it (e.g. on The Swan one)

I have a fair fair number of hydrangeas scattered about. My deepest shade areas tend to be fairy dry so hydrangea don’t grow there. Unless conditions get very dire, we only water things in pots.

If your hydrangeas are in a mixed bed, the flopping may not be as much of a problem as you think :-) If the companion plants are big enough they will probably mature together nicely - give them time :-)

I am interested in your comment about the difference you noticed between the same named cultivar from Bluestone and Proven Winners. What are the possible reasons for the disparity?

I planted three Lavalamp Flares this summer, two of which survived. The third was placed at the bottom of a hill in full sun, and I think I accidentally drowned it. Anyway, the two that survived didn't do too much this year but I am hopeful they will bloom well next summer. I actually moved them to a long, narrow bed (and added two more) this fall - since they are supposed to get to just 2-3' wide they will be perfect there if they do what they're supposed to. Anyway, they look great in photos but as a newer cultivar I haven't found much customer feedback on them yet.

Woody - Yes, I must have been looking at ‘Carol Mackie’. Wow - I really like the look of that foliage! And you’re zone 5 - I always thought those were not all that hardy. I’ll have to look into that one.

On the two Oct 16th photos - On a closer look, yes I see the hydrangea from the 1st photo in the background of the 2nd. So that is the ‘Little Lamb’ - those blooms are large and they get pretty pink. The 2nd photo that is the ‘Bombshell’ in the foreground - that reminds me of the Bobo in color that others were talking about. That white mum in the 2nd photo is the same as in the 1st photo - from that angle - it looks like a very big one.

Yes, the mop-heads bloom on old wood, but I have a couple that are supposed to bloom on new wood too. ‘Endless Summer’? I do get a few blooms on that here and there, but, never a whole shrub full like the paniculatas.

The ‘Little Lime’ I put in my front bed, I did place them in the middle of the bed and you’re right, with all the other plants in the bed, you don’t really see the full hydrangea shrub, from some angles. There are roses, lilies, Amsonia, asters, sedums and a Hardy Hibiscus near them, so I think they will blend together. I was just thinking this spring looking at how much was in the bed, that maybe I overdid it a little. LoL. When they all start growing bigger, I may have to take some plants out. :-)

Thanks for a tour of your Hydrangeas. :-)

kitasel - I don’t know what the reason might be, that is something I was hoping someone else might have an idea on.

blondanonima - I just looked that up and those are interesting too. They have that dark pink with a white pointed tip on each bloom. And they all seem to uniformly be pointing up. You'll have to post photos next season and see how they continue to mature. Thanks.

Mazerolm, unfortunatly, 'Bobo' was a bust for me, all three specimens had struggled for three years and then perished.

'Little Lamb'

The below photo was from last year, this summer the foliage could not bee seen for the thick dense white of the blooms! Not a dwarf, but can be kept compact. 'Little Lamb' should receive adequate moisture to avoid early drying of flowers.

Love, 'Carol Mackie’ daphne, it's been a surprising trouper and now 2 x 4 ft wide and the fragrance is amazing! I've actually seen it successfully grown in zone 2 as long as provided with a good snow covering,

Great photos of 'Little Lamb;. Thanks. I love that they offer such large flowers that are pretty for such a long time. You've placed in nicely in your bed.

And I was thinking not enough water for the Hydrangeas whose blooms turned brown early. I'll have to do better next year.

On 'Carol Mackie' - that sounds like a shrub I would enjoy, but here in MA - we don't get consistent snow cover in the winter. I wonder in zone 6b, if that will be an issue?

pm2 - (and FrozeBudd) - 'Carol Mackie' has been very tough here - and it got huge! Since daphnes have a reputation of up and dying for no obvious reason, I expected it to disappear at some point - I'd have to look up when I planted but it's been there at least 10 years. By last year it ad got so big it was 'eating' other plants.... So I hacked it back severely and thought that might kill it. But it came back as vigorous as ever this year. So, IMO, it's well worth trying!

The white 'mums are a pass-along plant from a neighbour. They were in her garden when she bought the house so she doesn't know their name - so neither do I! They are very vigorous and have spread a lot. I thought they had died out this spring as they weren't showing much sign of growth until August! I usually have to cut them back three times in the summer to keep them short and bushy. I didn't cut them down at all this year. They are very late to bloom and the white fades to pink as the flowers finish. They were still in full bloom but we got 4" of snow yesterday/overnight so they are now buried under the snow DH cleared off the driveway this morning. I'm sure that's the end of them for this year.... Hopefully they will survive the winter again this year.

FrozeBudd - your 'Little Lamb is looking fabulous. Ours gets a fair bit of shade from the garage so that probably keeps it a bit weaker. The color of the pink phase is much deeper this year for some reason. Some years it can be a bit of a muddy-pink. Does yours get good fall color on the flowers?

pm2 - a neighbour has a lot of 'Endless Summer' that perform really well, blooming vigorously for a long time. She usually forgets how to prune them and, when her husband says in the spring 'cut down those dead sticks', she asks me to remind her what she's supposed to do. :-) What I tell her is to check for where the green buds appear on the 'dead sticks' and cut down to the first green bud - that they will bloom early on the 'old wood' buds and later on the 'new wood' that comes form the base. It works for her (I've never grown them in my garden!) Here is a picture of some of hers in bloom July 3 2017:

'Carol Mackie' is officially going on my list. :-) We love fragrant plants, its the first thing I look for. I can never have enough of them.

I love mums. I usually only cut back once and they stay at a pretty good height. I find if I cut them too late, they don't bloom early enough to enjoy them. They are very long lived in my garden. Regardless of weather over the winter, they usually have new basal foliage going into the winter. I usually leave the dead foliage until spring, just to give them more protection. Seems a pretty low effort way of helping them get thru the winter. I really enjoyed mine this fall. And I had a white one in the back that was just doing very little in not enough sun, so I divided it into three and added those to the full sun bed out front. I wasn't sure I would enjoy white with the other more muted fall color mums, but I seem to have managed to get them in lucky positions where they really shined. Not by plan. [g] They were small this season but next year, they should be much bigger. Like everything else in that bed. [g]

Wow that's a lot of blooms on Endless Summer. I have never had that many on mine. I will try your suggestion for pruning in the spring. I think I may have been doing that any way. I get a lot of die back for some reason and I cut back to buds that appear alive. What direction are your neighbor's ES facing? Sun/shade? I wonder if it could be that, or like everything else, it might just be all the Maple tree roots sucking all the moisture out of the ground around my property.

pm2 - the neighbour’s garden is facing SE. It gets morning sun and then is shaded by the house in the afternoon. There are some large trees on the lawn (you can see some shade in the picture..). I think it might help that the plants are in raised beds so they are a bit away from any tree roots.

Re the ‘mums - we only cut them down in the spring after we see new growth starting at the base. These ones have spindly stems so would be very floppy if they weren’t cutdown several times. I generally follow the old ‘rule’ to cut them down three times by the first week of July and then leave them be to set buds. That seems to work for these ones.

My 'Endless Summer' is under the dripline of a Maple facing North, so it is not getting much sun there, just a little morning sun. The 2nd one is facing East, again, under the dripline of a mature Silver Maple. I do have one Hydrangea that faces almost Southeast, and that one blooms better. 'All Summer's Beauty' I believe it is. So, unfortunately, all my shrub borders are under the dripline of mature Maples. Except one that backs up to a neighbor that has 8 spruce trees in a row, a mature Sycamore and a white Pine. [g]

I never heard that 'old rule' about cutting 3x before the first week of July. I always thought it was cut back once before then. Hmmm....I'll have to try that. I'd like to see if it would produce thicker growth with more buds. Thank you! :-)

PM2, you might want to look some or post this on the Hydrangea forum. If you like a lacier look and stiff stems, check out Little Quickfire, which starts blooming early for a paniculata, in late June or early July, and will continue through frost if given adequate moisture, which in my area means just what comes from the sky. Good fall color starting in September. Another lacy paniculata to look at that doesn’t get taller than 4’-5’ is White Diamond which holds its white color into early October here. It does get a bit wider.

I also grow Tuff Stuff which is bigger than Tiny Tuff Stuff, and in my garden stays in the 3’-4’ range. It is a H. serrata, and you may want to see if there are any other smaller H. serrata besides the two listed here. At present all serratas on the market are lace cap, but they tend to be hardier than macrophyllas.

If you can find a nursery that carries it, check out Daphne x transatlantica ‘Summer Ice’, the longest blooming plant ever. It has semi evergreen leaves (that in the right site might be evergreen for you) that are delicately edged in white. In my garden it bloomed from late May until frost, never as an knock-your-socks-off plant like a Carol Mackie in bloom, but as a steady, handsome backbone with nice close ups and scent. If I could find one I would plant another without a second thought because one winter the voles ate every root of my other one.

I'm looking for that 3-4ft size for some locations and maybe a larger 4/5ft for another. So, I'll check those out. Boy there are a lot of new varieties. I have a 'Pink Diamond' that is larger, at least 6ft or more. It suffers in a border along a line of Spruce trees on the other side of the fence. This year particularly, it was dry as a bone. I should really move it. That has that lacy bloom.

'Summer Ice' is the variegated Daphne. I've seen that one in photos of some GW gardens, I'm sure. I didn't realize it was both fragrant and long bloom. Hard to find though. And the voles enjoy it...hmmm....well, I'll keep my eye out.

Thank you!

I wonder if it grew that way naturally for Rouge without any help from him with pruning?

prairiemoon2, I prune in the late winter for the purpose of reducing the size and then that's it.

I admit I have troubles galore with some other perennials but for me BOBO is "easie peasie" (I have 10 BOBOs in different light conditions, all doing well).

So you prune the branches symetrically all about the same length with a rounded shape? How much do you usually have to take off? Your shrub has a great shape to it. I'm always looking for easy to care for and something that gives such a huge display of flowers, how can you beat that? [g]

Thanks pm2.

I promise i don't "agonize" about the prune ;). I probably take off 6" to 8" all the way around (maybe more if there is a branch or two that is noticeably longer).

(I gave up on "Blushing Bride", "Endless Summer" etc many years ago as I just couldnt get them to reliably bloom. I would love to have the choice of flower colour that one gets with some of those macrophylla but BOBO (and other paniculatas) are so dependable when it comes to flower production and surviveability and even water requirements that I ditched the "macs" and went all in with the "pans". BOBO is a pretty good size for me ie my very established BOBOs are less than 4 feet tall and wide.)

I have an even smaller paniculata FLARE that i have had in a container for now two seasons.

https://bloomineasyplants.com/plants/flare/

It is clearly quite hardy as it overwintered (in the garage) in the pot. And this its first full year on the deck in full sun it looked good and bloomed well.

Thanks for the pruning info and that link is a good one. I like the photo of that 'Flare'. It looks nice together with the rest of the plantings there. You should post photos of your pot of 'Flare' next season.

I have been very satisfied with the paniculatas. And I didn't realize how much I was suffering with the macrophyllas. [g] I brought some hydrangea in the house to dry this fall and I had a few blues. One Endless Summer had one bloom on it all season. lol But to tell you the truth, I like it in an arrangement when it is dried, because the color is muted, but I've never been a fan of the vibrant blue of Hydrangeas in the landscape. I prefer the pinks, whites, greens, and love the mauve/purple/lavenders that some gardeners in the South have as a choice.

I think the macrophyllas are great if you live where they are hardy. I've only seen photos of gardens where they thrive and they are really special. Thanks!