Hydrangea quercifolia - Oakleaf hydrangea
I like all my plants to have a special memory for me, and so would love to plant an oakleaf hydrangea.
The area I was thinking of is pretty shady, (north facing, with lots of large trees behind it), will it work there, or is there another hydrangea that would be better suited to the area. The Annabelle maybe?
Anyone have an oakleaf hydrangea and what is it like in your garden ?
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They're lovely if all is well. But; they need shelter and moisture or the leaves don't look so good, they're not 100% hardy in cold parts and they don't like alkaline soil.
Fortunately I looked all that up before I bought one for my draughty, alkaline, usually dry East Anglian garden
In the sticks near Peterborough
We have two of them, a full sized and a dwarfer form. They are in sheltered 9ish0 positions and flower well. This is very definitely a cold garden though, we get frost very early in the winter and very late in the summer. Our soil is basically neutral.
All the H. paniculata types are equally good. They too thrive here. Nice in that you can prune out any damaged parts in early Spring which encourages lots of new flowering shoots.
We have two oak-leaved hydrangeas, on a north facing, very rocky bank under the shade of trees. It is sheltered (good news), on heavy clay (bad news) but fairly well drained because of slope and amount of rock in the ground. We're in south Wales so not too cold. They took a little time to establish, but once they got their roots down they took off. They look really lovely, especially in autumn (fantastic colour) - would highly recommend. If I was planting again I might use some Rootgrow to give them a better start.
We do find they get chewed by something. Possibly rabbits / hares. One was chewed completely through and destroyed overnight. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. The other two have survived, though.
We've got Annabelle, too. She is lovely, but the blooms are soooooo big they tend to flop. Also she is planted in the shade of a tree and grows strongly towards the light, so has ended up very lopsided. The quercifolia don't seem to be quite so light-sensitive.
Enjoy!
We had an oak leafed hydrangea Hydrangea Quercifolia ) in our garden in Hampshire. I loved it. The flowers are not the showiest but the Autumn leaf colour is lovely and I also like the slightly peeling bark.
Great feedback, thank you so much. Sounds like it will fit in nicely.
I bought two last year for some new shady borders Peanut. They seem to have survived the cold wet winter up here! The autumn colour's beautiful.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...