When my husband and I bought our home over ten years ago, we acquired a house in dire need of updating and an overgrown yard begging for some care and tending.  Concealed in the overgrowth, we found one single hydrangea bush.  I had never grown hydrangeas, and I didn't have a clue what to do with it.  It bloomed only sparsely and was in a poor location encroaching on a walkway.  I pruned away, tried fertilizing it, and finally did the inexcusable by moving it to a new location that proved to be its last resting place.  After that disaster, I questioned my talent for growing these lovely bushes and didn't try growing them again for a long time.  A few years after sending my poor bush to the afterlife, I visited the home of a dear friend who took me to her back yard to show me her luscious patch of mature hydrangeas.  Huge blue blooms completely . .  covered the bushes. She enthusiastically described cutting the blooms in the fall, bringing them in the house and drying them in her craft room, while taking me to the craft room to show off baskets heaped with lovely dried hydrangea blossoms.  I admit it.  I was shamed and envious. How in the world did she grow those gorgeous flowers?  After visiting my friend, I had frequent and tempting visions of hydrangeas growing gloriously throughout my garden but my prior experience was still alarmingly clear.  The most that I knew, or thought I knew,  about hydrangeas is that they like to grow in shady spots.  We have a seasonal creek lined with trees running along the edge of our property with a bank that is too shady and harsh for growing anything more than blackberries and poison oak.  I wondered if I was brave enough to turn this spot into a hydrangea haven. 

Since my first disastrous venture into hydrangea horticulture, I have learned a lot about gardening in general.  My husband and I rescued the overgrown yard and planted many new things with great success.  It was time to hold my chin up, screw up my confidence, and attempt to redeem myself by successfully building a hydrangea garden.  After three years and lots of lessons learned, our yard finally boasts the hydrangea patch of our dreams with blooms that we're proud to share with my dear friend.

Since our garden focuses on cut flowers, I started the foray into hydrangea gardening by selecting a few plants that would compliment the garden theme.  Although there are multiple families of hydrangeas, a little research helped put focus on three families that appeared most suitable for cutting; the round Macrophylla mopheads, the somewhat pointy-shaped Paniculatas, and a gorgeous snowball hydrangea from the Arborescens family called Annabelle.  By selecting a few different varieties from these families, our starter garden could boast a wide palette of colors, including white and multiple shades of pink/blue and red/purple.

Choosing the right hydrangea plants for hardiness and sunlight tolerance:

After we narrowed the choices to three families, a few physical factors needed to be considered before selecting the specific plants for the garden including the particulars of the planting location and the hardiness zone where we live.  It was important to be sure that the selected hydrangeas would thrive in the spot chosen for their new home.

Although I thought all hydrangeas were shade plants, a little research quickly dispelled that notion.  Not all hydrangeas like to be planted in the shade!  In fact, some need to be planted in full sun, and even those that like the shade need a bit of morning sun. Fortunately, my plot gets morning sun and has areas with varying depths of shade, including a few places that get full sun. This allowed me to try a selection of hydrangeas that like different levels of light.

Next, I needed to determine hardiness of the hydrangeas.  I discovered that hydrangeas are relatively hardy plants, but their hardiness varies by variety.  Some hydrangeas grow in areas as cold as zone 4, but most prefer temps in at least zone 5 or 6, and some won't survive in zones lower than 7. They also don't like intense heat, so regions warmer than zone 9 are probably not good for growing them.  We live in zone 8, allowing us to grow nearly all hydrangea cultivars in our garden.

I still had a lot of plants in my candidate pool, so I finally had to quit researching (read: procrastinating) and forge ahead into plant selection.  After much deliberation, I chose Annabelle, Generale Vicomtesse DeVibraye, Kluis Superba, Souvenior de Presidente Doumer, and Pee Wee. My collection has grown since then, but these plants were perfect to get started with growing, cutting and drying gorgeous hydrangeas! And I haven't finished adding to the collection.  I still have my eye on a beautiful multicolor pink/white hydrangea called Harlequin that it is going to be in my garden one of these summers soon!

My husband is the planting guru at our house, and has a tried and true method we use for planting all our shrubs, with minor variations depending on the plant.  Hydrangeas are no exception, and time has proven that his method works great.  First, we put down a layer of landscape cloth on the planting area.  With the fabric down, we determine how far apart to space the plants and mark the planting locations on the cloth.  To determine plant spacing, we checked the specifics of our selected hydrangeas and allowed them enough room to realize their full growth potential.  Hydrangeas grow just fine if they are close together, but an overlap of more than a foot when they are full grown is probably too close together.  Next, cut the shape of a cross in the landscape fabric at each marked planting location and fold the internal corners of the cross under to expose the earth beneath. We make sure to cut the cross large enough to allow digging of a BIG hole.  My favorite hydrangea supplier,  Hydrangeas Plus, recommends that the hole be two to three times the root ball, bigger if the soil is poor.  We have heavy clay soil, so we dig a REALLY big hole.  Hydrangeas have shallow root systems, so width is just as important as depth.  Amend the removed soil with compost, plant the hydrangea in the hole, and fill in with the amended soil, mounding the earth around the plant.  Finally, unfold the corners of the landscape cloth to tuck the plant in and finish with a layer of mulch to cover the landscape fabric.

Keeping Hydrangeas Healthy:  We discovered that water is the most critical component for getting hydrangeas established and keeping them healthy (no surprise there).  Summers are usually dry where we live in Oregon. Combined with heavy clay soil and the relatively harsh location where we planted our patch  under trees gives us a really dry environment.  To ensure that our hydrangeas are happy and healthy, we use drip irrigation.  This has proven to be an excellent decision.  Watering happens automatically via use of a timer.  We conserve water, and the hydrangeas thrive, even in the hottest part of the summer.

Pests have not been a problem, although slugs are numerous here and they like hydrangeas. I keep my eyes peeled for slug damage, but since I regularly slug bait my garden, I have probably been keeping them in check automatically.

Cool blue hydrangea mixed with other garden plants:  We usually fertilize only a couple times a year, early in spring when the leaves are coming out, and early fall.  We learned from the experts that the best kind of fertilizer for hydrangeas is one that is low in phosphate, especially if we want blue hydrangeas since  phosphate inhibits aluminum absorption. As explained below, the presence or lack of aluminum induces the magical blue color in so many varieties of hydrangea.

Depending upon the selected varieties, plants can be encouraged through soil amendments to morph from pink to blue or from red to purple except for white hydrangeas that do not change color with soil amendments. The color of the hydrangea changes to blue or purple after absorbing aluminum from an acidic soil.  To raise soil acidity (lower pH), add aluminum sulfate (we buy this from a local greenhouse supplier).  Although we have never tried them, many gardening enthusiasts report that simple household items can be used instead of aluminum sulfate, including pennies, sulfur, or rusty nails; or organic matter such as citrus peels, loose tea grounds, coffee grounds, grass clippings, evergreen needles, or bark.

Because color depends on the pH being in a specific target range, we test it.  We bought our testing kit from a seed catalog, and have also seen them at our local greenhouse supplier.  If the soil pH goes above 6.2, it can damage the hydrangea, so we think it is important to test.  The best blue color can be induced with soil pH around 5.5 to 6.0 and the pink color comes from soil around 6.0 to 6.2.

Since I seek variety for bouquets, I like to keep some of my hydrangeas pink and turn others blue.  If you would like to do the same, lower the pH only around those plants that you want to turn blue.  Be sure to label them with your targeted color!  It is relatively easy to add aluminum to the soil but not so easy to remove it.  So, once it's been added, it makes sense to continue keeping that particular plant blue.  To lower acidity, soil can be amended with lime or to block aluminum absorption, use phosphorus fertilizers; but this is not fool proof.  I found it best to figure out what color I want a specific hydrangea to be, label it, and not try to change it to another color later.

Pruning Hydrangeas:  Many hydrangeas grow flowers on old wood, but not all of them. Pruning off old wood may result in sacrificing blooms in the next bloom season. Even so, to keep hydrangeas shapely, pruning is essential.  I prune my hydrangeas in the fall, usually at the same time that I pick the final blooms for drying.  This is mostly to save time, because I can get two jobs done simultaneously.  But, pruning in the fall also minimizes the impact on the number of future blooms.  I remove any remaining blooms and cut back dead or prostrate branches.  Next, I shape the plants, only removing what is absolutely necessary to keep the plant tidy.  This has worked well for me so far, but many of my plants have not reached their full growth.  As they grow larger, they may need to have more severe pruning.

Propagating Hydrangeas:    I have had excellent luck propagating hydrangeas with soft cuttings.  I have also pinned a branch to the ground and had it root on the spot (ground layering).  In fact, each fall when I go through my patch to prune and pick the hydrangeas for drying, I find multiple branches that have been touching the ground all summer and have naturally rooted. Since I would prune them anyway, I consider finding a rooted branch a bonus and always save them for planting in pots to winter in my greenhouse.  Then, in the spring, I have bunches of new hydrangea plants to add to our garden or trade on. 

And now I am hooked . . . on hydrangeas!    Since my friend first inspired me, I have expanded my collection and enjoy each and every one of them. She does wedding flowers these days, and one day last summer she stopped over to get some white hydrangeas for a wedding bouquet.  She was suitably impressed by my collection, and raved on about how beautiful they were.  I have finally been redeemed!

If you have questions about any of the information provided here, send me a PM.  I'd love to hear from you, and will do the best that I can to give you a hand.  Well, except for digging, planting and weeding!

References: VanHoose, David and Kristin. Hydrangeas Plus catalog. Volume VI. Aurora, Oregon: 2006. American Hydrangea Society. In Answers to your Hydrangea Questions [Online]. Grayson, GA: 2007. King, Judith (2007). In Hydrangeas! Hydrangeas! FAQS [Online]. Available via a link from the American Hydrangea Society web site.