Cold Climate Gardening

Recently, Chris of Backyard Gardening Blog published a timeline in pictures, demonstrating the growth of his ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangeas. I found it very interesting to compare his photos with the few I took. You might want to have his post open in a separate tab of your browser so you can quickly flip back and forth to compare shrubs.

I didn’t take an early May photo this year, so we will have to assume that the hydrangea emerged from dormancy about the same time this year as it did in the photo above. As you can see, it is not even as far along as Chris’s May 1st photo, and Chris considered his hydrangeas behind in their growth at this point. Those are daylilies in the foreground.

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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.

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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.

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