I'm a newbie so forgive me for not having any technical information.

These were planted in Sept 05. These photos were taken in June 06.

There are two types here. I believe the one in front is an aborescens Samantha as the back of the leaves are definitely silver. Behind and to the right I believe I have White Domes (which Dirr doesn't seem to like very much).

These has been flowering fairly steadily since June.

Now the white dome flowers have turned green. Should I remove or leave them? Does anyone know?

I fertilized two weeks ago when the blooming seemed to be waning a bit. Now on the Samanthas I have some huge stem growth in front on the canes where I didn't cut any flowers. They are also speading, which I take to be good.

Should I headhead any older flowers that remain at the bottom of the Samanthas or just leave them?

I'm a bit concerned that the configuration of the plant is not now as even as before (my fault with the sloppy fertilizing). Can I assume that will be equalized when I prune back in the fall?

Very nice garden and pictures!

I think I do have Samantha too but not sure because when I ordered it, it was supposed to be Annabelle but the flowers look very much like your Samantha. Mislabeled!!! I'll post a pic of it when I get the chance later.

As for paniculatas, I really appreciate their fresh cream blooms right now, just as the blue mops are starting to fade. I have only limelight and three good old PeeGees.

Lerissa, I was going for Annabelles but at the time I bought last fall they were sold out. The Samanthas range from 4-6 inches and I did get one huge one that was at least 10 inches. Now I'm thinking that given the spread and the scale of the house they were a good choice.

I'm less enthralled with the White Domes but as I said in my post, I'm a total garden newbie, never have grown anything before and I'm just grateful things are blooming despite the pests.

Gardening is defintely the outdoor version of slow food.

I don't want this thread to turn into wrong direction, but still want to make a comment about 'White Domes'.
It's fine hydrangea and if planted in a proper setting could be a great asset.
By proper setting I mean a woodland border or any kind of natural looking setting, not a refined domesticated bed or foundation planting.
While it is less showy than 'Annabelle' when in bloom, it look great in a winter landscape among naked decidious shrubs. Of course, you shouldn't cut spent flowerheads to have that effect.
However, I don't see it as a 'stand alone' speciman plant and I suspect that most complains about it coming from those who expect it to be an 'Annabelle #2'.

rococogirl - very nice picture of White Dome. Mine doesn't look anything like that yet - much smaller and it is a couple of years old. I do like it. My Samantha also has hardly any blooms and is older than yours. Good job! As for pruning - you can cut them back in the fall or spring. It's up to you as the arborescens bloom on new wood.

ego, I understand your point and cannot disagree.

The WDs are fine. I'm not loving them a lot but where I have them they are sort of background. They're doing well so I'm not thinking of moving them. But they definitely are what they are and in a way what I like is that they're not the usual.

The Samanthas so their jobs pretty well. I'm happy with those and not feeling deprived on the Annabelle front, though I thought I might be.

silvergold, thanks.

I do cut way back in the fall.

My question is essentially should I deadhead the White Domes after they turn green? Do you guys deadhead Samanthas and macrophyllas?

Deadheading arborescens will NOT promote any new blooms during the current season.
You could leave flowerheads on or cut them off. Your choice and simply a matter of aesthetics.
I leave flowerheads on on ALL hydrangeas I grow.
At least those bare brown stick have some decoration in a winter.
For the WD I'd definitely leave them on.

I guess what I was trying to say is whether you remove the flower heads is really up to you. As ego45 says - just a matter of aesthetics. I usually leave mine.

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I'll leave mine as well then. Very helpful and much appreciated.

Hi.

Here's some pictures for you. From a friend's garden.

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This is a Kyushu that's been planted for about the same amount of time I think. It's about seven feet tall and the picture is a little deceiving because the ground slopes off quickly on the other side of the fence where it is and the phlox, I guess reaching for the light, is a lot taller than typical.

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And a question. Has anyone had any experience with cutting back a Paniculata really hard in the Spring? Like down to just a couple buds off old growth, essentially to the ground? With an old established plant, not with just one you just recently planted. I'd love to hear any of your thoughts about this. I'm wondering if you could put some of these panicualatas like Kyushu in a border where you might not appreciate the full maturity size of them but would instead like something much smaller. The idea being that, with a mature plant, you could cut it back hard each spring and get some stalks maybe four or so feet tall with a nice flower in the late summer. I do this sort of thing with the Purple Smokebush, a pretty common practice.

{{gwi:1018173}} (Behind the Smokebush is two very old witchhazels which are eight or ten feet tall. The tallest one on the left is Jelena and the smaller on the right is Arnold's Promise. They bloom in the middle of the winter while the snow is still on the ground and you just start to feel that Spring is around the corner.)

Now Imagine that is a Kyushu. Four foot long stems with a nice white flower in mid summer in a border. What do you think?

Hay.

Hi, Hay!

I think you have a perfect picture of authentic 'Snowflake'.
I don't grow it myself yet, but have seen them and this is a real thing.

Re: hard pruning. I think it should work , especially with Kuyshu since it's more upright, but you still have to take into consideration arching effect (which will be much more prominent on a young pliable canes) and if it would be me I wouldn't do cuts below 2 feet.
Here is the picture of my UNintentional experiment with Limelight.
In March of this year, while removing huge maple, workers ruined my vase shaped 6' tall Limelight (took me 3 years to give it desired shape). I had no other choice as to prune it almost to the ground with longest and strongest canes being not more than 15-18" long.
Here it is as of today, about 4.5' tall.
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I understand your desire to see a hammamelis in a winter in unobstructed view, but instead of spring pruning you may resort to late fall pruning thus affording a larger Kyushu in a summer.

Hi Hay,
Don't know first hand about the hard pruning of paniculatas(even though I've read numerous times that this is an acceptable, though not necessarily recommended, practice), but we do something similar down here to our Crepe Myrtles. (remarkably similar to H.Paniculata in many ways, but much more colorful) In late winter/early spring, we cut them back to the (usually multi) trunks and let them sprout long, 4 to 6 ft stems that produce fewer but larger panicles. This is sometimes referred to by purists as "Crepe Murder" but is a very, if not the most, common pruning practice nonetheless and makes for a much showier tree/shrub, with better form and easier maintenance.

Now.... I do know a Snowflake when I see one and yours is a particularly catalog/textbook picture worthy one. Thanks for sharing the paniculata pics too.

I tell you, if my friend's gardens looked like your friend's gardens, I'd never come home!.....yg

Hi Hay. Thanks for the contribution! I love to see the pictures! Regarding hard pruning, I think you would have to evaulate how much each of them grows in your environment. You mention Kyushu - that one has been a slow grower for me. I think it probably only grows a couple of feet a year for me although mine is only 3 years old. Here at the edge of zone 4b/5a, though I have a pretty short growing season as hydrangea are slow to leaf out in the spring.

I love the smokebush - I keep wondering if they would grow here.

Thanks, everyone.

I do a lot of shopping at Home Depot for plants. I can easily enough pop into one or two stores a week and they're always getting something interesting. Scraggly, but with some potential, usually. They had a small Swan a while back, and this past week they had Kyushus for twenty dollars. They're particularly scraggly, but I think they're good candidates for what I want to try. But it's going to be interesting, I think.

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It'll be interesting to see tall spikes with a flower at the terminal. Maybe. At the back of the border? Maybe.

Egoct, That's good to see what effect you got. Thanks. I think the basic shape and size you have is closer to what I want, but I'd like to have it be more compact-thicker and have more flowers. (Not that you can arrange that, but that's what I'd like)

And instead of cutting it back just once, what if I cut it back twice or even three times in a season. I'd probably get a plant looking more like I had in mind, but how far could I push this and still expect to get some nice flowes before too long into the season?

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I love "Crepe Murders"

Topping trees is another version of the idea, I guess. I usually don't like it, but, is it Catalpa that is pruned back really hard to encourage big leaves? I know some that are cut back each year to just stump size and they're really quite nice. The yard they're in is very tiny and they fill out either side of the walk just perfectly. In the winter they sit there, all cut back and stubby looking, but even then they're interesting.

I did get a shot last night of another version.
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I like it . It certainly makes the tree more in scale with the house and property, I think. I drive by that house a couple of times a week and it's going to be interesting to watch. See that little newly-planted tree on the left. Right next to their walkway? There's actually two of them. One is on the other side of the walkway. They're Tulip Trees. I don't remember the scientific name, but they get to be enormous trees and they're planted not more than five feet apart on either side of their walk.

Talk about thread swerve.

Silvergold, Dirr says that Smokebush are hardy to zone 4, but says something to suggest that zone 5 might be more appropriate. But if you were to mulch the roots heavily over winter and be satisfied with the pruned look I've got, then maybe it would work for you. He makes the point that pruning them back hard will give you a more red foliage on the newer growth.

While we're talking other shrubs, I'm very fond of Spiraea 'ogon' Maybe it's Spiraea Thunbergii 'ogon'. And I see it as Spiraea 'Mellow Yellow', sometimes. Very nice plant with vey nice yellow green foliage and a wonderful fall color.

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Hay, as you know, Kuyshu is much more upright shrub due to the fact that flowerheads are not as full as those of LL or PG thus weighting less. Every new branch start arching only in its upper 1/3 to 1/4 instead of lower 1/3 to 1/2 as in case of LL and PG.
If I understand it correct, I think that in order to achieve the effect you are looking for with Kuyshu, you have to prune it for several years untill yours will develop 4-5-6 thick main stems going from the base at different angles, but not less than 45 degrees to the ground. Then you could prune it each year to 15-18" and have a full 4-5' tall semi-upright shrub in a summer.
Just, my 2c.

I really don't know much about the habit of the Paniculatas.

Today I was looking at the large potted up plants we bought at the nursery, thinking about this idea of pruning. And I'm starting to think that Kyushu may not be the best for what I have in mind right now.

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I can see that the Nursery has been training them and there are several layers of pruning to get this nice little shrubby look. Maybe I'd do it much more so that I'd finally get a really tight plant that I could then keep cutting back yearly to this level.

I think I like the habit of Limelight better than the other ones for this. And I like the idea that I can plant it in a little more shady spot and get very nice lime green flowes. Lime goes well with just about everything.

Maybe I can have both.

Hay.

Hi Hay. I have both Limelight and Kyushu. My Kyushu is not as vigorous (also as ego45 says more upright). I think limelight would withstand pruning better but would flop as it has much larger blooms.

Here is my Kyushu in bloom:

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And here is Limelight for comparison:

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Your Kyushu is a nice looking specimen. Doesn't exactly look like the one I got from Home Depot. That's very encouraging.
Did you do anything to get it to be as compact as it is? I mean, like pruning it or training it?

I do think I like the Limelight flower better, though. Especially that lime green color. I saw somewhere recently that Dirr was discussing the future of hydrangeas and, of course, he's very enthusiastic. The future he saw was one in which we get more Endless Summer types that bloom for us Northerners and stronger stemmed plants that will replace the Annabelles and the like. On a quest for the perfect Hydrangea....

Thank you for your thoughts. I really appreciate them and they help me a lot.

Back to Thread Swerve....

The Oakleaf 'Snowflake' is a most interesting flower.
You can see from the pictures that it has this sorta psychedelic coloring that almost gets me dizzy looking at it. I looked at the flowers more closely yesterday and what is happening is that the little sepals (or whatever they are) just keep on coming out of the middle of the last ones. Then, as so many hydrangeas do, the older ones will start to fade to a pink while the newer ones keep coming on as white.

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And because these flowers just keep on coming, it has a very long blooming season. In my zone, we don't get a lot of blooms from Oakleafs because they bloom from a terminal bud from last year and.... well, that's where I came in...I'm starting to wonder about how I can overwinter these and get them to bloom for me....

And if we get to the perfect Hydrangea, I hope it looks a little like

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Hay.

Nice pictures Hay. Made me want to have a Snowflake oakleaf. These doubles are a must to have. And that fading Enziandom bloom is very lovely.

Regarding pruning of Kyushu, it was purchased as a 5 gallon plant from Forest Farm in 2003. I was shocked when I received it because the box was HUGE. But it was well worth it's $35 in shipping costs. They had to prune the side branches some to make it fit into the box. As a result, I think it will end up making a nice multistemmed tree. I have been removing the lower branches in the spring - although you can't tell from this picture as new ones replaced it (didn't want to cut off flowers). This is the first year it has really done much for me. It is in a windy location though and until last year (installed drip irrigation) it lacked from water - my first grandiflora I planted in the same bed died in the dry spring we had in it's second year.

On the perfect hydrangea, I got to admit, I like the Annabelle with it's flopping! But I don't think Dirr is a big fan of paniculatas in general - based on his book. He seems to have come around to them late and even then his comments are some what negative.

Great pictures. Now, they would make me happy if they made an Oakleaf that would bloom for me!! I'm planning on giving Endless Summer another year to see how it goes - two with no blooms, the other with two blooms. Although I did just feed them last week with triple super phosphate - will see if that does anything for them before it is too cold.

Kuyshu could be easily trained into tree.
Here is the last year picture where it was happily blooming in part shade with sparse watering. I moved it this year in a well watered full sun position and now I literally couldn't see a foliage thru the flowers. Very hard to photograph though, because of the sun reflection off the white flowers. Have to wait for overcast day.

Be careful Hay....once you start growing Oakleafs, they can quickly become favorites. The thing about Oakleafs...even if they don't bloom, they're not a disappointment as the foliage is well worth the trouble of growing them. Have you tried SnowQueen? She's supposed to be the most cold hardy. (to zone 5 with possibly some winter die back in zone 5). It's also one of the nicest in form (very upright and noble) and foliage IMO. The blooms can't compare to Snowflake, but are still very beautiful in their own right. I can't imagine how you would winter protect one (or even if you would need to) but I'm sure you'll figure out something.

Thanks to all for the pics. I never get tired of seeing them.....yg

silvergold, you mentioned Dirr being negative about paniculatas - last September I attended the Southern Nursery Association Plant Symposium in Louisville KY and Mike was one of the speakers. He also brought several paniculata selected from a batch of Pink Diamond seedlings that he plans on releasing "soon" as new cultivators - one of which I bought in the auction - So maybe he's finally coming around to us northerner's way of thinking.

mrgpag - good to hear. I am always looking for new cultivars! Just waiting for Pinky Winky next year!