My Hydrangeas Are Putting on a SHOW! Late Summer Garden Update

Hey, I'm James and welcome back to my Zone 5 Bee Garden in New Brunswick. Today I'm going to just do a quick video on an update on my panicle hydrangeas. I did a full video of most of my panicles, most of my hydrangeas in general about a month ago and I thought it'd be nice to just give an update, especially with this time of season when the nighttime temperatures start dropping. The colors on the actual panicles and florets really start to change. They really start to flush out to a pink and on some of the varieties a real vibrant red punchy color. This particular hydrangea here is a an original limelight. It's about eight feet tall and wide, maybe a little larger, and it's a beautiful specimen. I really like this particular hydrangea. It does flop. The size of the panicles after heavy rains does tend to make it flop, but it's held up fairly well this year. I do prune this back every fall by about a third. You can prune these back in the spring if you don't get heavy snow loads. You know my location with the snow and the freezing rain tends to really weigh these down over the winter and causes the branches to snap. What I'll do as I do the tour of my hydrangeas is I'll try to pop a picture up of how they looked a month ago so you can see the change. Okay here I've got two different panicle hydrangeas. This is the flare hydrangea and that is the little lime punch hydrangea. They're both at their mature size, about three to four feet tall and wide. They are slightly different as you can see with the panicle themselves. This one is a lace cap and that one is not. It is moth head. It's got really dense florets and that one turns particularly a nice red punchy color as the temperatures start to cool. This one does as well quite nicely. This panicle hydrangea is called the little quickfire hydrangea. It's also a lace cap but as you can see it too transitions to a nice vibrant pink as the nighttime temperatures start dropping. This one again is essentially at its mature size, about three feet by three feet. It can get a little bit larger but this is about as large as it's going to get in my garden. This particular style, the lace cap hydrangeas, I don't have to worry about cutting back in the fall just because it's not as dense as some of the moth heads. The actual snow doesn't seem to have such an impact on the flower and on the stem. They tend to be able to support the weight and these will cut back more in the spring and by cutting these back I only take essentially the flower off itself. I don't really cut these back hard. So here I have three quickfire fab hydrangeas and unlike the little quickfire these ones are a moth head. They're an early blooming hydrangea. The little quickfire and the quickfire fab are probably the earliest flowering hydrangea I have. This one is possibly my favorite as of right now. It gets probably the most vibrant color of all the panicles I have. These are still very young. They're only have been in the ground for one and a half seasons and they're only about three feet tall. They'll eventually get up to eight feet tall and wide and these ones like the limelight original will cut back by about a third in the fall. This is a limelight prime and it's near its mature size. These get about five to six feet tall and wide. It is approaching five feet so it might get a little bit taller and definitely a little bit wider. It still has only been in the ground for a couple seasons. I did earlier this year I purchased this as a shrub and earliest earlier this season I did cut it back into a standard or tree form which it seems to I think look quite nice. I think I will stake it before the fall storms come and try to straighten out the actual trunk a little bit. But lovely hydrangea it flowers a little earlier than the original limelight and its panicles aren't quite as large so it doesn't have the same tendency to flop quite as bad. But this one again I do cut back I can cut this one back by about a third. With most of my panicle hydrangeas the larger specimens I tend to cut back by about a third either in the winter or either in late fall or early spring. The smaller varieties I just tend to cut only the panicles off in the spring. This is a vanilla strawberry panicle hydrangea and it too is essentially at its mature size about four feet. They can get about three to five feet tall and wide so this one's been in the ground it's fourth season I think it's pretty much met it's been I've reached its peak. It flushes also a really nice pink still has its limey green white petals mixed with some pink as the time as the nighttime temperatures start to drop. This one's a dragon baby panicle hydrangea and it's actually quite impressed me the panicles themselves are fairly small. This is its mature size about two feet maybe two to three feet tall and wide but it does get quite vibrant pink as well. But I like it because it has quite a different contrast of different colors. This particular panicle is just a little newer the one on the left than the one on the right. This is how they emerge and then they slowly fade to a pink starting at the bottom of the panicle and then get darker pink and even kind of almost a fiery red as the season progresses. This one's the firelight tidbit and it is similar to the dragon baby. It is a smaller hydrangea again almost at its mature size of two to three feet tall and like the dragon baby it too has quite a nice coloring to it in the fall. This actual panicle might be a little looser than the dragon baby. I think the florets are a little tighter but the color on this particular hydrangea is spectacular. This medium-sized panicle hydrangea here is a bauble hydrangea and I really like this one. It doesn't fade to quite as a vibrant of a pink or red as some of the other varieties but the plant itself usually gets profusely covered by panicles. The panicles emerge maybe a little earlier than some of the other varieties as well so it's a really really great panicle hydrangea to have and tuck into the garden. That's it for my panicle hydrangea update. Until next time, happy gardening!