Add a touch of charm to the garden with Hydrangea
With its blousy blooms of pink, white and blue Hydrangea brings delicate colour to the garden and some an old fashion charm. This popular garden shrub is the Horticultural Trades Association’s (HTA) Plant of the Month for August 2015.
There are two types of flowering hydrangea. Mophead flowers which are large round flowerheads resembling pom-poms and lacecap flowers which bear round, flat flowerheads.
Hydrangea’s big, long-lasting blooms will continue into late summer and over the winter, it will lose its leaves, but being fully hardy will re-leaf the following year. A Hydrangea should be planted in a moist area in full sun to partial shade. Here, as a hardy, non-evergreen shrub it should last many years.
Musician, singer and keen gardener Katie Melua is a big fan of hydrangeas. She says, “The Hydrangea, even as a singular flower head, is majestic to me. I used a lot of hydrangeas at my September wedding and was able to keep and dry nearly all of them; they still fill the house with that richness and bring back the lovely memories of that day.”
Recommended RHS AGM varieties include:
• Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’
• Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Altona’
• Hydrangea serrata ‘Preziosa’
• Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’
Those looking for companion plants to complement salvia in the garden are recommended to try:
• Miscanthus ‘Silver Veil’
• Helianthus ‘Loddon Gold’
• Echinops ‘Taplow Blue’
Nominated and agreed upon by British growers and retailers, the HTA’s Plant of the Month campaign highlights the plants that are widely available and looking especially good each month.
For more details, please visit
www.the-hta.org.uk/plantofthemonth
