New arborescens is coming upon us:-)

15 years ago

From Tim Wood's (Spring Meadow Nursery) newsletter,

'... there was a need for more selections of H. arborescens and that I would like to see an improved 'Annabelle' with sturdier stems. At the time this was only a wish, however I was breeding and selecting with the goal of developeing an Annabelle with strong stems. Annabelle is such a great plant but is a mess after it rains. The stems are just not strong enough to hold the large flowers. Well I have exciting news to share; I found a plant with very strong stems. This was not a big of a surprise, but what came as a surprise was that this selection had strong stems and incredibly larger flower heads too. When I counted the individual flowers this selection had 4x as many flowers as Annabell. I call it Incrediball Hydrangea...

....Don't ask be where you can buy it because it's not for sale - yet. Hopefully you can get it from Wayside gardens next Spring.'

Start saving :-))

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (8)

ostrich
15 years ago
And please don't tell us that it comes in WHITE, PINK and BLUE.... then I really would be saving my pennies!!! :-)
razorback33
15 years ago
Hmmm! Wonder where he found that one? In my garden, all of the old 'Annabelles's' have strong stems and none of the flowers bend over to the ground during rainfall (during the rare occasions, when that happens). If the canes don't die back to the ground during winter, all of the flower buds are set on new growth from old, thick, upright, woody canes. Some very old plants appear to be tree-like, with a large mound of foliage and flowers at the top of thick, heavy stems.
I think I would admire the new arborescens from a distance, until SM adds it to their PW collection and it becomes available at local nurseries.. I was a customer of SM for many years, but had to find a new supplier, to cut my losses. Also, their large selection of Hydrangea cultivars kept shrinking, until it was down to a ho-hum list.
MO & HO
Rb
Related Discussions
CCCXXXV (335) - October Looms Upon Us!
Q
Comments (101)
I have emerged from the abyss otherwise known as the Guest Room..Ai yi-yi! Im sure that many of you are familiar with The Guest Room.."Where should we put this stuff?" "Oh, just throw it in The Guest Room for now." So there it goes and there it stays until oh-oh, a real guest is coming ! So you shove it all in the closet and warn the guest not to open the closet doors under any circumstances. I spent the better part of the day up there, and have effectively sorted and purged . Filled the trash tote and have two more 32 gal trash bags full and waiting in the wings. Put together a huge pile of salvation army items and lugged them down to the garage. Also lugged down 3 pieces of defunct stereo equipment to take to the electronics recycling next weekend. Discovered that one of the twin beds is sporting two mattresses instead of a mattress and box springs-it teeters at an odd angle as a result.One can only speculate how that came about ! Found a box of 45s. Cleaned out the cedar "Hopeless" chest, which had only two items of any value in it. Its the smallest room in the house , and yet an absolute mountain of stuff kept emerging. ! So it was a productive day..and beautiful weather as I gazed longingly out the window. I did take a break for some watering and deadheading. Everything is just bone dry. How great all the pics were for the birthday trio ! Michelle, I am going to get butternut squash next weekend at the farmers market and make a recipe I found for squash enchiladas. If it turns out Ill share Marian , you and Marie asked about the photo, it was a pic from Yosemite , taken by DS. Marie, maybe you will have some pics of the Bouvier couple ? Deanne- lol, youd probably need an extra truck for all your containers ! My DD is coming down for Thanksgiving and I told her to bring an empty car, because I am sending as many of the containers back up for her to babysit as I can fit in her vehicle. Mary, I have not read "The Road", but had in fact made plans to read all three of his border trilogy this winter. I am so behind on my reading list ! I have promised myself that I will get back to my book-a-week pace this winter. Thank you so much for posting the David Russell link- I have always loved classical guitar and dont have nearly enough cds in my collection. I will definitely order a couple of Davids ! Babs, glad to see a post from you no matter how brief ! Hope all is well. Mariann, isnt it nice to encounter the kindness of others ? I hope your DD is helped by the device that was sent to you ! I imagine that the protracted recovery period has affected your DDs attitude which in turn makes healing more difficult. I wish her the best ! Okay, time to take an evening stroll in the garden with a glass of cheap-o chardonnay. Greetings to all ! Kathy in Napa
...See More
incrediball - improved annabelle true or false
Q
Comments (33)
"Early this spring, I cut the stems quite low for both plants, and I was hoping to get some massive blooms, but no such luck... " You should of hoping for the quite opposite effect, which in reality you have indeed. Cutting it low will induce numerous new shoots thus more, but smaller flowerheads. The higher you leave the last years stems than less lateral offshots you'll have. In exchange number of blooms will be lesser, but they will be larger. Re: reblooming. Not realy reblooming, but you could trick it into producing flowerheads not all at once (1-2 weeks), but rather say... during a 3-4 weeks period. To do so I prune randomly some portion of the shrub in early spring (in a leafless stage) and another portion as soon as I see appearance of the first leaves (visualy shrub start look green from the distance, but you still see some individual canes). End result: you changing longevity of the three middle phases of its bloom, 1. all green 2. already white + still green, (short term) 3. all white, (long term) 4. already green + still white (short term) 5. all green again. Now the same traditional sequence will look like this, 1. all green 2. already white + still green, (long term) 3. all white, (short to medium term) 4. already green + still white (long term) 5. all green again P.S. Experimenting with arborescens is easy, fun and riskless- it will bloom no matter what :-))
...See More
First day of market is upon us
Q
Comments (32)
I don't know how many in a typical "sleeve" that's why I figured worst case a gross. But I didn't even open the dozen we bought last night, made strawberry preserves this AM, prepped 6 jars which is all I had empty to reuse (I still have unopened boxes of jars) and actually had 7 lids. Let berries sit all day yesterday, boiled 3 minutes around 5PM, let sit another 13 hours with dishtowel over pan, took berries out and boiled syrup til it was heavy (did plate test and it set), added berries brought to full boil, took off and let sit 5 min before starting to fill jars and I still have float! Also maybe I'm too generous with fruit b/c Linda Z says 2.5lbs of berries and 4C sugar makes 3 pints, I only got 5 halfpints with fruit and 1 half pint that was almost all syrup (stuck that in fridge). Anyway, I may use this dozen lids (plus 2 left over) if/when we start emptying more jars for our own use, but I also have a dozen lids and bands so I think I'm going to hold off ordering any lids. Linda Z mentioned a jar manufacturer on her blog that has smooth jars, I haven't checked them out since I have 3 cases of Ball here (plus more quilted crystal). How did visit to factory outlet go? Here is a link that might be useful: Linda Z's blog
...See More
As winter comes upon us....
Q
Comments (11)
WoWoW! Gorgeous! We do get some fantastic sunsets down here. I am now OFFICIALLY shopping for a new camera. 8-] I'm kinda leaning toward an Olympus with 4mp and 10x optical zoom. We had fog until almost 2 PM today. It was about as close to a perfect day as it gets. [Driving across the bridge over the bay, all the shades of grey and blue were breath-taking.] I dragged home 114 books from the library sale, saw a Brown Creeper (year bird), got a nice (I hope) pic of a Tersa Spinx Moth... Now I'm itching to decorate for Christmas, but have to do some major cleaning (BAH!) and rearranging first. ICA, Sophie ^i^
...See More
Tim Wood
15 years ago
Here's a link to the blog and it has pictures as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Hunter Blog
georgia-rose
15 years ago
I'm waiting on the pink-flowered 'Annabelle' that Dirr has on the back-burner. There are some Hydrangea radiata around that have pink flowers, but they are LC. Still very pretty, but blooms aren't as large as 'Annabelle'.
Iris GW
15 years ago
Hydrangea arborescens L. ssp. radiata was what I was interested in ... looks like it is now known as Hydrangea radiata.

I'd vote for sturdier stems on 'Annabelle' - it truly is a mess after the rain (and I keep all my old stems, hoping it will get better, but it doesn't).
Gary M
15 years ago
Jackson and Perkins catalog Listed Annabelle PPAF. I inquired by email if they could patented an existing plant. There responce was "yes". That leaves a lot of questions.

Garyt
razorback33
15 years ago
According to the Patent laws, 'Annabelle' would be inelgible for a patent, since it has been in commerce for several years.
But given the propensity of some people to fabricate historical data on the application and the lack of subject knowledge by the examiners, I suppose anything is possible.
Greed seems to be in vogue today!
Rb
orchidacea
15 years ago
The pink Annabelle is coming...but not for this growing season but next...keep a spot in your garden for that assuming you can find one..I expect some nurseries will start taking orders later this yr for 2010 shippments...the White Incrediball is very hard to find this season, it is new to the mkt, I can only find a few online places have this for sales - Sooner Plant Farm, Garden Crossing, and Wayside...I got my Incrediballs some weeks ago from Sooner - trade gallon size, very good packaging, size is a bit small for the container, the plants were dormant at the time, now they are sprouting new leaves, vey healthy plants...so far so good...I have looked for larger gallon size Incrediballs around, searching high and low, but the wholesale growers told me this item is WHITE-Hot this season, the supply is limited and anyone would be lucky to find anything larger than the trade gallon this season...keep an eye on these items in your local nurseries and save some spots in the garden...

http://plant-quest.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-pink-flowered-annabelle-hydrangea.html

New arborescens is coming upon us:-)

Comments (8)

ostrich

razorback33

Related Discussions

Tim Wood

georgia-rose

Iris GW

Gary M

razorback33

orchidacea

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US