Hydrangea steals the limelight

 

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My eldest son Nick lives in Southport, Con-necticut, a short train ride north of New York.

“i’ve never been to New York,” said my friend Val.

“Well come when i next go,” i said, and she has.

So here we are in Southport at Nick’s lovely shingle clad east coast colonial house complete with a garden. This is his first year in this house and the first garden he has had in the US. it was hard to tell from photos what the garden consisted of. There are clipped box hedge plants, mop head hydrangeas, spireas and, as i came around the corner, the most beauti-ful hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ i have ever seen. Bursting out from the corner of the house, covered in huge cream cone shaped blooms, was the plant growing at least a couple of metres tall and equally as wide.

We are here in autumn and the trees are just beginning to change colour. Yesterday we had a tour of the area. The suburb is full of deciduous trees and i noticed that the Limelight hydrangea is very popular. Used as a hedge or as a specimum, i noticed that in some gardens it had been shaped into a stunning standard. i Googled further information. One consumer wrote:

“This Hydrangea is a show stopper. Right now, first four months in the ground, full, full sun, lots of fresh air, it is blooming like mad – big, fat beauti-ful creamy to bright white elongated blooms. They are sturdy blooms, and take a good wind. They don't collapse. It has dou-bled in size since April, and I'm looking forward to all the color changes it will go through. The shape of the plant is graceful and strong. It's a garden highlight. The Limelight I planted last year is equally

fantastic, and it's in part shade. Last year the blooms got so big and the color changes were so amaz-ing to see, you couldn't be-lieve all that beauty on one plant. Because of that one plant, I went out and got three more.” i know the feeling!

This is, from all i could read, is an easy plant to grow. Drought tolerant, wind resistant, they require more sun than the ‘mop top’ hy-drangeas to do well. They are also more tolerant of different soil types but need a rich soil to do re-

ally well.

The flowers open a lime (some say char-treuse) fade to a cream and then pink. in the photo of Nick’s plant the flowers are already cream and there are some on the lower side begin-ning to go pink. They cover the plant from mid summer through to late autumn. The plants are best pruned just before spring and can be prop-agated from hardwood cuttings in the winter and softwood cuttings in the summer.

At home, the eastern

side of the house at The Block (an area until now i have ignored because of scaffolding, and because it is the area that had to be dug up for pipes to the sewage system, tanks etc) is now available for planting Box tells me. He and Rick have concreted a serpentine path from the back door all the way down. i have been con-sidering the area and now i think this lime-light hydrangea would make a fantastic hedge. Obscuring the tank it would be a lovely sight from the dining room/

lounge windows.

As i research i find to my disappointment that they like ‘freezing’ weath-er which, of course, they get here. i am now wait-ing on information from Wairere Nurseries and

Jan in New Zealand to find out if this is indeed the case.

Both Jan and Wair-ere Nurseries say that this hydrangea grows in the Waikato so they see no reason why it should not grow in the North. i will plant one when i get home and see how it does.

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