OT - new hydrangea plant

It is a bit of a stretch to suggest a Hydrangea macrophylla is a herbaceous perennial, but I thought some of you in colder climates would be interested in the new H macrophylla 'Bailmer' being sold as Endless Summer. It will not be available in garden centers until spring 2004 but I have a small cutting sitting in on my kitchen windowsill right now courtesy of the propagator at the MANTS trade show. If I could insert a huge smiley face at this point, I would. :-) I tell you about it to whet your appetite and to let you know its coming.

Normally, Hydrangea macrophylla bloom on old wood and the buds are not reliably winter hardy in my zone 4 garden; the leaves are fine but the blue flowers never appear from the dead buds. Endless Summer blooms on both old and new wood in its first year in the garden so if a hard winter kills the old buds, I still get flowers from the new ones produced this coming spring. The plant was discovered in Minnesota in a similar zone 4 garden so it looks like I'll get both the old and new blooms.

I'm really excited about this so I thought I'd share the delight with you. Mind you, y'all have to wait for another season before you can find one. I'll tell you how it blooms this spring. :-)

There's also a whole bunch of new perennials coming your way this spring - from the double Echinacea 'Razzmataz' to yet another new crop of wonderfully coloured Lobelia. I picked up the big Darwin catalog while at the show (Darwin is a producer of cuttings for larger nurseries and they introduce a lot of new plants to the trade) and the catalogue is truly plant pornography. :-)

The only part of the show that was a pain in the anatomy was having to drive home through Cheryl's Pocono Mountains in yet again another snow storm.

Doug
Doug Green,
Award-winning garden writer
Perennial Gardening tips and Free Newsletter
at http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com

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