How’s that for beautiful?
Tardiva Hydrangea is one of those hydrangeas that “Never Fails to Bloom”! The plant that you are looking at in these photos I planted in the spring of 2020. They were little tiny rooted cuttings and I planted them in an area of the nursery where it’s really difficult to water them as needed. I watered then when I could, but now where near as often and I would have like to.
Despite that, the grew and bloomed like crazy! One of the highlights of this hydrangea is that they are late summer, early fall bloomers. It’s always nice to have something that blooms profusely late in the season.
Tardiva Hydrangea are super hardy and they thrive in zones 3 to 8. They love full sun and will tolerate some shade but not a lot.
The blooms are perfect for cutting as cut flowers.
This plant can also be grown as tree form. Simple select one tall, straight stem and train it to a stake and remove all of the other branches over time.
Tardiva is super easy to propagate. They work well as softwood cuttings and work just as well as hardwood cuttings.
In this video me and the donkeys, Finnegan and Fergus, show you how to grow tree hydrangeas.
If you really want to grow these as tree hydrangea I suggest you get a plant, plant it in your landscape and just let it grow all summer without pruning. By the end of the summer you should have very long branches. Sometime between December 1st and late winter clip those branches and stick them in a pot of potting soil.
This is one of those rare plants where you should be able to root a really long cutting. Most plants we make cuttings about 4″ long, but I’m many paniculata hydrangeas can be rooted with much longer cuttings.
Since many tree hydrangeas sell for $125.00 or more it’s certainly worth a shot!
Questions, comments, mean things to say? Just post them below and I will respond.
Until then, by any and all means stay inspired!
Hi Mike, I love your videos. I live in Houston, TX, zone 9, and I would love to have a couple of hydrangea trees to plant in front of my windows (facing North). You said you could train just about any hydrangea into a tree, did I hear you correctly? I’ve only heard that Limelight, hydrangea paniculate (or PeeGee is another name) would grow into a tree. How long does it take to become a tree of about 5 to 6 foot tall? Thank you.
Jan,
You can train just about any hydrangea into a tree except the macrophylla varieties, they just don’t grow tall enough and in most places would never be winter hardy enough. How long? One season or two at the most.