There is a group of us gardenwebbers that get together a couple of times a year for a plant swap and Bar-B-Q. Some of us ladies get together thru out the year, visiting each others gardens and swapping plants and going to plant sales and nurseries together. It is one of these ladies who I visited with that I received these plants from. It is now her turn to visit with me and we hope to make a side trip to Gardino's nursery. Denise....there is a yellow heushkeliana and I think that is what I may have. It does have peduncles on it now and they sure do look like all the photo's I see. I just wish I could get a good picture to show ya'll. Would make me feel so much better if it was confirmed. You confirmed my thoughts pretty much on the others.#8 has to be some kind of a publicalyx, #5 has me baffled too. Several of these Hoya's have the huge leaves with stout vines. And I think I read somewhere that you are a big fan of the big leaf hoya's. pugluvr I feel very fortunate that I received these plants from this wonderful and generous lady. I hope I can return her gererousity 10 fold when she visits with me. Thanks again everyone for taking the time to look and ID for me. Regina

Pistachio is the trade name (name under which it is marketed) for the cultivar Hydrangea macrophylla 'Horwack'. Similarly, 'Schloss Wackerbarth' and Glam Rock seem to be the cultivar and trade names of a different H. macrophylla. Tony Advent (owner of Plant Delights Nursery) wrote this explanation, "The current improper use of trademarks in the horticultural industry had its origin more than a half century ago. The worst culprits, in the early years, were the rose and bedding plant industry. The rose industry seems to have been the first to use nonsensical, non-conforming names for plant cultivars, while the bedding plant industry completely thumbed its nose at the Code by not even bothering to come up with any cultivar names for most of their introductions. One of the most famous roses in horticulture is one that everyone knows as Peace. Surprisingly, there is no such plant as Rosa 'Peace'. The plant we grow under this name is actually Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland'. The trade name Peace was coined by Conard Pyle Nursery, and used to market Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland' after World War II to capitalize on the post-war sentiment. The plant became known in the public's mind as the Peace rose. Some of the larger nurseries soon realized that regardless of the cultivar name of the plant, they could come up with their own proprietary (trademarked) marketing name and use these names to promote plants which already had valid cultivar names. The idea was to convince the public that the company's marketing name was actually the name of the plant. The next step in the downward spiral was when nurserymen began intentionally giving their new plants stupid nonsensical cultivar names. Subsequent plant promotions would often only tout the marketing name, causing the consumer to often not realize the plant had a real cultivar name. The cultivar name, if included at all in ads and tags, would be printed in very small print in comparison to the "marketing name". The entire idea is for the company's marketing (trademark) name to become the generic name of the product in the consumer's mind. The practice of using nonsensical names violates the entire purpose for having an International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants while the use of trademarks as generic names violates the legal use of trademarks." You can read the rest of the article on the Plant Delights website. I don't know a lot about the rules for plant cultivar names, but this whole thing of having the cultivar name and a cutesy marketing name adds a great deal of confusion to the process of IDing plants. To be technically correct, one should put the cultivar name in single quotes and the trade name not.

July 14, 2016, z4: I live in West Central MN, z4, have had an Endless Summer, Twist & Shout, planted on East corner of house since summer of 2011 (5 yrs at time of this writing). It gets full sun in morning, a little dappled sun in afternoon for a very short time, rich soil, moist conditions, landscape fabric covered with wood mulch, no turf or other nearby vegetation to compete with. This should be perfect Hydrangea conditions, and while this plant has been robust and healthy from the very beginning, it does NOT get anywhere near its advertised size. (Label that came on my plant says 4 to 5 ft tall and wide.) It dies back completely to the ground every winter so growth starts all over, from ground level, every spring, rather late in the spring, and reaches its maximum size of 2 ft tall X 3 ft wide in mid July. This also means it blooms only on new growth. Though it's advertised as blooming on both new and old growth, there is no old growth that survives the winter for blooms to grow on. I do not cut it back in the fall....don't touch it at all.....and leave the old growth until the following season. In the spring, I clean up the dead and fallen leaves from the year before but leave the old stems standing. (I started leaving the previous year's dead stems through the following spring beginning from the time I planted it, always hoping that, if given enough time, they'd come to life and be that "old growth" that would give the plant that bigger size and more flowers. I've given up that idea, but it's just a habit now. It's become one of those, "This is how I manage this plant because I know it does no harm" , kind of things.) Once the new growth is nearing the height of the previous year's stems, I simply break the old ones off as close to ground level as I can without disturbing new growth, usually ending up to be 3-4 inches above ground level, completely hidden by the new growth. Because they're "dead", the old stems just snap off by hand, very easily, and those few inches that may be left behind have fallen into the soil by the time late fall arrives and the plant once again goes into dormancy, has shed its summer foliage, and everything that was living that summer dies back completely over the coming winter. Over the summer and early fall, it usually has up to 12 blooms at any given time, depending on how much TLC it gets. Blooms range in size from 3" to 7" across (older blooms). Each flower lasts a long time. As far as the color of the flowers, some years they are more on the purple side, some years they are a bit more pinkish. Most years, there's an interesting mix of both colors on each individual flower, often times starting out more on the pink side but changing to purple with a smattering of pink as the blooms mature to full size. I don't know how the plant determines, but it does so on its own since I do NOT amend the soil with anything to change the PH level or influence the bloom color. All I do as far as feeding is give it a drink of water soluble "Bloom Booster" fertilizer (10-52-10) three or four times during the summer, beginning around July 1 (when the plant is nearing its full size and focusing most of its energy into putting on new blooms), and ending the end of August, at the latest. I tried giving it a balanced fertilizer beginning earlier in the season and found that it there was lots of green but sparse on flowers and could get rather leggy. This feeding routine seems to give the best results, in my situation, anyway. I'm very fortunate to live in an area of glacier-rich black soil (black gold!) where pretty much EVERYTHING I've ever planted in my 40 yrs of gardening/landscaping grows much larger and faster than what's stated on the labels. I was expecting the same with this Hydrangea, that its mature size would be greater than its label indicated, so I gave it plenty of room, which is doesn't come close to filling. I've decided to transplant it either this fall or next spring (depending on what I find on the internet for info on how it will stand up to fall transplanting in my zone, which I've not yet found). I think I'll put a Black Lace Elderberry bush in the vacated spot and move the Twist&Shout Hydrangea further down the east side of the house, next to a large bunch of established White Phlox just about to break into beautiful full bloom this time of year. That's my only disappointment with this Hydrangea, its ultimate size. According to my experience, it will never reach the size stated on the label in zone 4, where it dies back to the ground every winter and comes back from ground level every spring. An attractive and, so far, hardy zone 4 plant, to be sure, but not nearly as large as some other varieties in the Hydrangea family, and the larger size is what I was wanting when I bought the Twist and Shout.

Your estimate that your potted plant endured -20° because it was in a pot when the air temperature dipped to 0° for one night is.. confusing, at best. Zone hardiness ratings for plants are based on the assumption that the plant is planted in the ground, period. By definition, it does not apply to container plants, and the rule of thumb "choose plants for containers that are rated for 2 zones colder than your area" is, as far as I have been able to find, totally meaningless. And for good reason. Roots of most plants are significantly less cold hardy than the above ground portions, with root damage or death happening at temperatures as warm as 20°. This means that a large number of the hardiness zones in the US are too cold for the roots of most plants - if they get exposed to air temperatures in the winter. Planted in the ground, they usually do not. Mulch, leaf litter, snow cover, and moisture content of the soil (water insulates better than air) will all help keep that cold air from getting to and damaging the roots. Not to mention whatever heat may be retained by the ground itself. But an exposed container? You're asking for trouble whenever the air temperatures drop below 20° for an extended amount of time. Glad your hydrangea survived it.