Cold Climate Gardening

After complaining about the lack of bloom on my ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea last year, I thought I’d better put in a good word for this shrub now that it is living up to expectations. It is growing vigorously and has a lot of flowers on it.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Endless Summer Hydrangea: Dream Come True–or Nightmare?
Hydrangea ‘Forever & Ever Double Pink’ stole my heart in 2006. This photo was taken September 7 of that yearIt’s just like Elizabeth said. We gardeners want to believe that our dream plant is out there, just waiting for us to find it. I know when I first saw photos of the ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea, and read that it bloomed in zone 4, I thought I’d finally be able to grow the same kind of hydrangeas my grandmother did. As you’ll read below, the truth is somewhat more complicated. The same year I got the ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea (2006), I also received some Forever & Ever hydrangeas to trial, including this one on the left. “Trial” means it came to me straight from the grower, already forced into precocious growth, a good month before my last frost, so its behavior in my garden that first year could hardly be considered typical. My garden notebook doesn’t state when this bloomed that first year, but it was still blooming the first week in September. I fell in love with it.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I wanted one
The Original ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea. Photo © Endless Summer®I first learned about ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea four springs ago and decided instantaneously that I wanted one for my garden, and not just because of those gorgeous blue flowers. My grandma had always had these kind of hydrangeas (H. macrophylla) growing in her garden, and had explained to me that the flower color changed depending on the type of soil it was growing in. I could never grow my grandma’s kind of hydrangea because until ‘Endless Summer’ came along, these shrubs only bloomed on last year’s woody growth, which in my climate would get killed to the ground.

I got one
Last year, I finally got one.

Popularity: 99% [?]