Do It Now


I usually write about hydrangeas in the late summer, when they are gracing most every garden in my zone with their armloads of marvelously frothy flowers. Ha. Hopefully that written description sounds just as extravagant as they appear in full bloom. This shrub, and all of its many iterations and cultivars, energizes and endows our late season landscape with an unparalleled and succinct representation of summer. Who doesn’t swoon over hydrangeas in bloom? I do. Each properly placed and well grown shrub is covered in flowers for weeks at summer’s end. It is indeed the super nova stage of the summer landscape. A brass band playing loudly in perfectly brassy unison, if you will. Hydrangeas representing in all their glory define what it means to be robust. They are so willing, and eminently worth cultivating. They give so much more than they need or demand. They are not wall flowers, or delicate ephemerals, or  gracefully weedy perennials-nor are they on that tough to grow list. They are like a freight train pulling in to the station with steam billowing up from the tracks and a horn blaring. Are you ready? If the leaf buds have broken dormancy and are swollen all along the stems of the shrubs  – and if those swelling buds are greening up  – it is time to prune.

Let me get what not to do out of the way first. My opinion on the matter is all I have to offer. Do not prune in the fall. Pruning is a call to grow.  Encouraging a shrub that is facing the winter to get up and grow is just not a good idea. Your best move is to encourage the long sleep. Movement towards winter dormancy in woody plants starts in my zone in August.  Once the leaves turn color, mature, and drop, leave all of the rest of the shrub intact. The most important thing to do to hydrangeas in the fall is nothing. Do not cut the flower heads off.  They look lovely with snow on them, and they wave in the winter winds. That cinnamon brown color is beautiful with evergreens. If you must remove the flower heads, OK, but do not cut these shrubs down to the ground in the fall.  That will force them to sprout from below ground in the spring. Be merciful. Leave at least 3 or 4 buds above ground when you prune-in the spring. If you are growing big leaf hydrangeas-as in hydrangeas that bloom on the previous year’s wood/growth, do not prune in the fall or the spring. Prune them promptly and only after they finish blooming. If you don’t know which type of hydrangeas you are growing, find out before you prune.

Hydrangeas do not respond very well to a formal shearing. Few plants do. Shearing hydrangeas  encourages multiple breaks below the cut, which result in a dense thicket of stems and leaves at the top. The bottom half of the shrub gets shaded.  I am amazed at how many hydrangeas I see pruned like this, but it is not good for the health of the plant, or the flowers.  I give my hydrangeas a shag haircut, keeping the stems at the top shorter and the stems nearer the bottom longer. The idea is to provide a sunny and airy space for each branch to live free. You can see this arrangement in the location of the flower heads in the photo above. Each branch has its own address.

What might not be so obvious is that these last 2 pictures show two different types in hydrangeas.  On the far left and far right of a center block of Limelight hydrangeas, as in Hydrangea paniculata “Limelight”, are rows of Incrediballs – Hydrangea arborescens “Incrediball.   They add flowers at a lower level, and they bloom earlier than Limelight. Their upright plant habit and carriage is vastly superior to their predecessor, the storied “Annabelle”.  You can see the Incrediball flowers are fairly round, and the Limelights are broadly cone shaped.  A certain amount of legginess is inevitable with Limelight. That mess of twigs is what you get over the winter with them. The Incrediballs help cover up those bare legs. These cultivars have different parentage, but they are pruned the same way.  They bloom on new growth. On what will be the current years growth.

So if it’s not appropriate to prune hydrangeas by shearing, what is the purpose of setting stakes and string? My yard, where these photographs were taken, slopes dramatically from one end to the other. The blocks of hydrangeas are a good distance apart. I would want those blocks to loosely resemble one another. The only way to tell if they approximately occupy the same spot in the landscape composition on both the north and south is to set up a level line. It’s easy to do with a bamboo stake or metal fence post, and a ball of spring. A tiny level can be clipped on to the string.

Pruning by eye can be incredibly inaccurate. I see a lot of that too. Pruning that matches uneven terrain, or follows a sloping driveway. Or pruning just to prune, with no thought to the horizon. I see that too. Sometimes it is hard to believe a level attached to a string line is accurate, but it is. I would never trust my eye to see a level line for pruning. It is terrible to wade through a big pruning project only to discover your vision for them is lopsided. And what is required to set it to right is not possible until the mistake grows out. I shudder to think of that. Happily most plants are very tolerant of off the cuff pruning. The recovery just takes time.

My level line set up is an approximation of the horizon. In the ballpark, as it were, or within shouting distance. It is not exact. It does not represent or enforce a rule. Nor does it rule the pruning process. It provides orientation. As in up and down, and left and right. It provides a framework from which to work. Taking the time to set up 2 poles and a level line is a way to walk away from the the noise of the day, and study on this first foray into the new garden season. It is a way to get ready for the job at hand. But in spite of all this, should you decide to prune your hydrangeas from the hip, Mother Nature will treat you just the same as any other gardener. Indifferently. But indeed you will notice the difference.

The pruning of my hydrangeas is underway.

Cultivating Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas of varying types have to be the most widely grown summer flowering shrubs of all. How so? The numbers of cultivars bred from the species serrata, macrophylla, paniculata, arborescens, anomala (climbing hydrangea) and quercifolia (oakleaf hydrangea) surely number in the hundreds. The numbers of those hybrids and cultivars commonly available for sale are staggering. And it seems that every year new cultivars are offered for sale. Should you be interested in hydrangeas for your garden, there are many from which to choose. I am by no means complaining. A warm sunny late July day in my zone featuring a blue sky and the hydrangeas in bloom is one definition of a Michigan summer garden. The spring in Michigan is breathtaking for the sheer number and diversity of plants that break dormancy, come on, and bloom. And of course the June garden features the peonies, roses and delphiniums, and countless other perennials. The July and August garden is ruled by the hydrangeas, much to my delight. I do love these robust growing shrubs that grow and bloom profusely. My hydrangeas make me look like an accomplished gardener, and ask for little in return.       That said, I am fairly selective in what varieties I plant. The short version is that I avoid any hydrangea that blooms on the previous year’s growth. Michigan winters can and will kill the latent flower buds. Pink and blue hydrangeas may do well for you, but they are underwhelming for me. I tend to stick with just a few of the available white blooming cultivars. Hydrangea paniculata, notably Limelight, and its compact relative Bobo, is hardy as can be. These cultivars are overwhelmingly generous with their flowers. They are solidly hardy in my zone. My Limelight hydrangeas in my front yard have been there over 20 years, and endured every one of my pruning experiments. I try to dust them with Hollytone in the spring – but if I forget, they grow and bloom anyway. If I am late with the water, the wilted leaves let you know to get out the hose and use it. Should I cut the blooms, they are gorgeous in a vase. The aftermath of a vase full of hydrangeas is a vase full of dry hydrangeas.

I have a number of clients with Limelight hydrangeas on standard in containers. A number of them choose to overwinter them in their pots, against my advice. I am not a fan of overwintering any plants in pots in my zone. Very few plants can tolerate their roots being above ground during our winter. My worries were unfounded. All of those hydrangeas spending the winter in pots came on without skipping a beat. Our past winter dealt a lot of damage to woody plants. I lost the entire top of a picea mucrunata – shocking, this. Four boxwood burned and died near my front walk. It was a sleeper tough winter. I was shocked at the extent of the winter damage this spring. But the hydrangeas in pots did not skip a beat. One pair has been in pots for 8 years now. Really? That is what I call the willingness to be. I decided to try them myself, both at the shop, and at home. Our grower prunes them after they flower, in July, and again early the following spring.  This routine keeps the heads compact and dense.

Cultivating hydrangeas is not that difficult. Site them with more sun than not-meaning 6 hours a day of good sun. . They do like that sun to bloom well. Hydrangeas can be quite shade tolerant, but those in a lot of shade have weak stems and sparse flowering. Have a lot of shade? Try the oak leaf hydrangea. All of the cultivars of Hydrangea quercifolia are very tolerant of low light. The oak leafs are reputed to do very well in southern US locations. They are easy going about the soil composition, but soil that is enriched with organic matter is optimal.  Being large shrubs with a full complement of large leaves, they need a regular supply of water. Don’t be fooled by their wilting leaves on a very hot day. Those big leaves are thin, and they wilt from heat. If they perk up once the sun goes down, and the weather cools, leave the watering for another time. Hydrangeas of one kind or another in my zone have been blooming or are about to bloom for several weeks. Annabelle hydrangeas typically bloom in June here. A very cold spring set the bloom date back a bit, but all of the rain attending that chill resulted in luxuriant growth. The cultivars known as Bobo (a dwarf relative of Limelight) and Incrediball (a more upright and strong stemmed version of Annabelle). The Little Lime hydrangeas are budding up, and will be in bloom soon. As much as my clients might want pink or blue hydrangeas, I discourage planting hydrangeas in my zone that bloom on old wood. Our winters can be breathtakingly cold and hard. The shrubs will survive. The flowers not so much. The Bobo hydrangeas pictured above bloom profusely. The white florets have a decidedly greenish cast. The color of the creeping jenny on these stone stairs echoes that green.

These Bobos are planted in full sun. Do not try this at home unless you have the patience and dedication to monitor the water closely. The flowers will burn and go brown if the plant lacks for water. Some afternoon shade is a good idea. If you have the room, massing hydrangeas can be an especially dramatic look. Their are no hard and fast rules about the spacing. The mature size of a Bobo is 3′-5′, so spacing them at 4′ apart will result in a billowy and undulating hedge. Spacing them at 36″-42″ inches on center refers to the distance from the center of one plant to the center of the next. This spacing will produce a denser hedge or mass. There are pros and cons to every spacing decision. But it is worthwhile to note that hydrangeas grow very fast.

A hydrangea of decent size in a nursery pot means the plants are most likely root bound. This means they will need to be watered faithfully, maybe daily, until they settle in. That water needs to be applied directly to the root ball. A newly planted hydrangea that goes dry can react with singed leaves and flowers.

Enough sun and water and some moisture retentive soil is all they ask for.

A mass of Bobo hydrangea

Even the north sides of these south facing hydrangeas bloom well.

mass of hydrangea Incrediball

On my driveway, a Limelight hydrangea on standard is getting ready to bloom.

A New Landscape

A client who built a new house was not so enamored with the landscape that resulted. I understand that what it means to be in that spot, as I have watched it happen plenty of times.  Building a new house calls for lots of decisions, and incredible focus. The decision making on the landscape for a new house comes at a time when the client is exhausted from the effort of getting the interior spaces built and liveable. It is hard to maintain that concentration and energy to the very end of any project, much less a project of this scale. It can make sense to stand pat with a landscape until you have lived there long enough to figure out what you want from it.  Once her house was built, she was interested in revisiting the landscape. I think she was surprised by how keen an interest she had in the out of doors.  She walked out to meet me with a set of plans a year ago March.

The landscape in place was simply not to her taste. She wanted a much more formal design, with plantings in multiple layers. She wanted some punctuation with less formal elements, like roses and hydrangeas. I was fortunate in that she had spent a good deal of time collecting pictures of landscapes she liked. I client who can articulate what they like in one way or another is a good client. To my mind, there were two issues that stood out. It is a very large house positioned very close to the driveway. And the grade dropped dramatically from the front door to the drive, and from the south end to the north. The house was uncomfortably perched on top of a hill. The driveway location was a given. I thought the landscape needed to provide an ample space for the house to sit, and create a sense of depth.

My plan called for a pair of long rectangular parterres on either side of the front walk. The right hand parterre would dead end into the angled garage wall. To my mind, this creates the illusion that the landscape came first, and the garage second. An additional landscape planting on the far side of the drive court would repeat that linear run of evergreens from the house side, and would include a large sweeping bed of Little Lime Hydrangea.  But the most dramatic change would be in the installation of low brick retaining walls with limestone caps. These walls would enable a flat space in front of the house, upon which a formal landscape could be built.

It is tough to spot those walls in the drawing, but this construction picture explains it. I very rarely design projects that we do not build, but my schedule was already booked out for quite some time. Her landscape and maintenance contractor is a very well respected company that I was confident would build the project with the same care and precision that I would. I was also interested in her interest and commitment to a beautiful landscape. So I took on the design portion, and turned the plans over to her contractor.  I actually was surprised to find how much I liked having a project that I could watch come to life, without having to participate except in an advisory way.  Schecter Landscaping did a terrific job of the layout, construction and planting.

I did go by on occasion, and I did draw some of the smaller areas with greater detail that I would have were I doing the installation. But all in all, I was delighted having a design only role.  I took my crews several times to see the progress on the installation. The retaining wall on the lower left in the above picture is almost 3 feet tall. The house no longer feels like it is sliding down a hill.

Once the block wall was up, the planting was able to proceed. I like the preponderance of evergreens in the front, as the landscape will read every month of the year. The house has a number of complex shapes and angles, so the locations of the vertical arborvitae were determined by the shape and size of the parterres.  Those trees are far enough away from the house that they do not obstruct views from the inside out.

The steps were replaced with rock faced limestone slabs, and the existing paver bricks were taken up and reset.

The evergreens read just as well from the house side as they do from the driveway. The empty space on the right in this picture eventually got 48″ by 48″ brick landings for a pair of large pots. The rest of the space has a single row of roses.To the bottom left is the walkway and steps which bisect the right hand parterre, and lead to the side door entrance.

The walk to the side door culminates in a small radiused terrace, large enough for a bench and a pot. The trio of wood boxes sit in a bed, which now has been planted with a collection of small stature summer blooming perennials.

All of the planted elements of the landscape were in place last summer. She was very pleased with the outcome, and so was I. We did install a collection of pots, which we planted both for fall and winter. But it would take a year before she would see anything of the hydrangeas.

They came in to bloom just a short time ago. The parterres are planted with hydrangea “Incrediball” – one of her favorite varieties. The opposite side of the drive is planted with Little Lime hydrangeas. It is already possible to see that the landscape has multiple layers.

The car park is flanked by 2 rectangles of ground reserved for seasonal plants. Elements of the landscape from the house side are repeated here, so the overall volume of landscape exceeds the volume of paving.

It is great fun to be at a this point with a big landscape project. And even more satisfying to have a client who is happy with the outcome.

view from the car park

front walk

the view out

The view from the road is what I hoped it would be.