Photo courtesy dreamstime
Hydrangea paniculata is a high bush with large cone-shaped clusters of small white flowers.
About three years ago, I was working with a husband-and-wife design client. They had a south-facing front porch with almost no shelter from the late afternoon sun. He was fine with anything she wanted to do to the rest of the yard, he claimed, so long as the design included a row of flowering shrubs along the front porch. He suggested knockout roses. But, he added, he also liked straight lines and formality. He said, “I don’t like landscapes that seem to go every which way, with no rhyme or reason.”
She hated knockout roses, saying, “They are everywhere!” She also said the garden needed some romance and she really wanted to incorporate more native plants. In particular, she wanted a pollinator garden in at least some part of the front yard and less turf grass.
So, I came up with a design that included, among other things, a foundation planting along the front with Hydrangea paniculata ‘Jane’ (Little Lime Hardy Hydrangea) directly in front of the foundation and Ilex vomitoria ‘Nana’ (Dwarf Yaupon Holly) directly in front of the Hydrangea, so that the blooms from the Hydrangea would spill over the top of the hollies.
Dreamstime
Hydrange paniculata (‘Renhy’) is also known as ‘Vanilla Strawberry Panicle Hydrangea.’
When I presented the design, the husband looked at it and said, “That’s ridiculous! Those Hydrangea will cook in all that sun.” His wife nodded her head in agreement. I could see him actually starting to stand up, as if to leave our meeting. His body language indicated he was completely through with my incompetence.
But I asked him to give me just a few minutes to explain. He sat back down. I explained that the Hydrangea genus is diverse. It has many different species. When most people in the southeastern United States think of Hydrangea, they are thinking of cultivars of Hydrangea macrophylla. This is the big-leaf Hydrangea, which does best in less than full sun. ‘Nikko Blue’ is the most common of these.
However, other species are commonly available in the nursery trade in the United States, including H. arborescens, H. serratta, H. aspera, H. quercifolia, and H. paniculta. Of those, H. paniculata is the one that not only tolerates the sun but really needs full sun to perform at its best. In subsequent columns, I will write about Hydrangea for shade and Hydrangea for mixed-light conditions. However, here are some of the most readily available cultivars of H. paniculata with which you should be familiar:
Dreamstime
Hydrangea paniculata (‘Little Lime’ or ‘Jane’)
1. ‘Limelight’ is probably the H. paniculta cultivar with which people are most familiar. Big football-like blooms begin green in the summer but then go through a range of colors, including shades of pink, before becoming spent in late fall. This plant gets very big, from 6 to 8 feet tall and wide. Its heavy blooms on tall stems frequently cause it to lay down in rainstorms. Pruning it back by 30 percent in the spring may help mitigate this tendency.
2. ‘Jane,’ marketed as ‘Little Lime,’ has turned out to be a better plant for most urban gardens than ‘Limelight.’ Though its marketing would imply that it is merely a dwarf cultivar of limelight, in fact it was not derived from ‘Limelight’ at all. Its only genetic commonality with ‘Limelight’ is that they both descended from the same species, H. paniculata. It is smaller, maturing at 3 to 5 feet tall and wide. Also, its stalks tend to stand straighter than ‘Limelight.’ It has less of a tendency to lay down in heavy rainstorms. It fits better into the tighter spaces typical of smaller urban yards.
3. ‘Quickfire’ tends to stand up straighter than ‘Limelight.’ It produces beautiful lace-cap-like white blooms. In areas farther north than Memphis, ‘Quickfire’ blooms fade to a deep red in the fall. But in Memphis, this tendency is less pronounced. This plant also gets 6 to 8 feet tall and wide, comparable in size to ‘Limelight.’ Its dwarf is marketed under the name, ‘Little Quickfire.’ ‘Little Quickfire’ gets 3 to 5 feet tall and wide.
Dreamstime
Hydrangea paniculata (‘Diamond Rouge’)
4. If you like the lime-green football-shaped blooms of Limelight, then you’ll love H. paniculata ‘SMHPMWMH.’ This cultivar is marketed under the name ‘Candy Apple Hydrangea.’ It matures at a size 4 to 5 feet wide. I find it to be much better than both ‘Limelight’ and ‘Little Lime.’ It has less of a tendency to lay down than ‘Limelight’ and has bigger and more richly colored blooms than ‘Little Lime.’
There are many more H. paniculata cultivars to consider, including ‘Bobo,’ ‘Zinfin Doll,’ ‘Strawberry Shake,’ ‘Ruby’ (marketed under the name Angel’s Blush), ‘Firelight,’ ‘Little Lamb,’ ‘Pinky Winky,’ ‘Diamond Rouge,’ and ‘Vanilla Strawberry,’
Few if any independent garden centers are big enough to have every or even most known cultivars of H. paniculata in stock at any given time. So it’s good to check in with them regularly, as their inventory changes.
John A. Jennings is an experienced garden designer, garden writer, and nursery manager. He also has degrees from the University of Richmond and the University of Memphis. Email him at gardener@memphismagazine.com.
