Oak leaf Hydrangea

~ By Kythera Ann ~

I first fell in love with hydrangeas in San Francisco. They get huge in Golden Gate Park and are filled with large blue and purple flowers. I tried to grow them when I lived in Boulder Creek with little success. They would grow, stay green, but never bloom.

I found out from the nursery it was because the soil of a redwood forest just keep the plant happy! It has no reason to bloom or propagate. To get a hydrangeas to bloom in the redwoods one has to change the soil to "stress" the plant so that it will bloom...so that it thinks it is dying and will rush around and have flowers so that future generations will survive. Isn't that wild? So I was not into purposely "stressing" anything, certainly not a plant, so I ended up with just very large green plants while I lived there.

I also found out that the "blue" flowers are in direct proportion to the iron in the soil. Even if one buys a blue hydrangea, if there is not enough iron in the soil, the blooms, over the years will go into purple; if there isn't enough iron for purple, then they will go to pink and a total lack of iron yields white! A friend of mine, who is a Japanese gardener and owns a nursery, recommends the simple solution of pounding an iron nail in the soil near the trunk of the bush. This usually leaches enough iron into the soil to maintain bloom color.

In the Appalachians of North Carolina, I haven't seen the blue and purple Hydrangeas I grew up with, so I asked the local nursery and discovered, and then fell in love with, our own indigenous variety of Hydrangea called the "Oak leaf."

This plant is called "oak leaf" due to the shape of the leaves, which are like an oak (see pics below). It is a white blooming shrub with FOUR seasons of interest, which is totally cool in my opinion!

When the azaleas start to wind down their blooming in early spring, the Oak leaf Hydrangea shows off tapering panicles of white to creamy white flowers that are from four to 12 inches long (15.2-30.5 cm) and 3 to 5 inches wide (7.6-12.7 cm). They are show stoppers to say the least.

From late spring, through summer, the blooms will fade to a light rose, and then to a dusky rose or burgundy, and they won't fall off! They make the perfect flower for dry flower arrangements...you've seen some of them in my fall arrangements I've sent in before.

As amazing as the flowers are, the fall and winter are also beautiful with this shrub! The large leaves, starting in fall, will turn a stunning burgundy or reddish purple. This adds great color to a yard filled with the hot oranges, yellows and reds of autumn. In early winter, while most other shrubs and trees have long since dropped their leaves, the large, almost leathery foliage of this hydrangea remains wine red against the wintering background. In late winter the stems have attractive cinnamon-tan-orange bark that shreds and peels in thin flakes...a wonderful bit of color to the barren landscape throughout the winter.

I am not big on fussy plants that need a lot of work or care or attention (accept to coo and ah them, LOL). This shrub fits the bill for me; you can plant it in zones 5-9. Just plant it where it will get morning sun and afternoon shade and where the soil can drain (soggy soil will give it root rot). This indigenous type of Hydrangea also takes colder winters and tolerates drought conditions when it has too. Of course it prefers warm summers, cool winters and nice rainfall.... just like us!

Be sure to plant it with plenty of room to grow. If it likes where you planted it, it will rapidly grow to be four to eight feet tall (1.22 - 2.44 meters) and twelve feet (3.66 meters) wide!

When caring for them, the only other thing to remember is that Oak leaf Hydrangeas bloom on old wood formed the previous season, so if pruning is necessary, you should do it right after the flowers begin to fade. Now that you know how to plant and care for it, you can enjoy it all year (it has no known pests either)!

Who could ask for more?

         

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