Limelight Love!

Those that know me know I am a hydrangea fan. No garden flower is more showy than a hydrangea bloom-even the fancy roses can't top them so I love hydrangeas. And I don't think any hydrangea bloom is more beautiful than that of the 'Limelight'  hydrangea (except all the other hydrangeas when they are in bloom)! The 'Limelight' hydrangeas have been in bloom for more than a month now and I am so loving the very flashy view from my back deck.

'Limelight' hydrangeas are Hydrangea paniculata type hydrangeas. In this group there are several good cultivars, many of which I grow. I have nearly 100 hydrangeas growing in my garden but none give me the show that these massed 'Limelights' do. My trick to grow them so well is to site them correctly and to prune correctly. This year I learned something new about pruning Limelights. I will now share that lesson with you. 

All paniculata type hydrangeas should be pruned in early spring because they flower on new growth. If you allow paniculata type hydrangeas to grow without any pruning you will soon get a very woody and long leggy shrub with few blooms. I know this personally because this happened to me with my 'Tardiva' paniculata hydrangea. I am surprised it even bloomed this year but it did. That is another lesson for you; paniculatas are very forgiving if you prune them improperly. 

I pruned all seven of the above 'Limelights' back in March. I don't pick a certain height to prune them to; instead I look at where the branching occurs and how I want my shrub to grow and cut at that point. The older the shrub the taller you might want to leave it. I think I initially cut these down to about three feet in March. Once things warmed up they happily sprouted new branches at the pruned points and began growing. They grew so well and so much that I felt like maybe they needed another round of pruning. I did this pruning in June. Basically I cut the new growth down by half again. At the time of pruning there were no buds visible and I thought that even though I cut the shrubs again that they would still have a chance to grow and bloom. I did not prune cut all of the new branches. I left a lot of branches without cuts preferring instead to prune the very large shrubs back from my pathway and I left the new growth of the rest of the hydrangea alone where it was not interfering with anything. You can see the pathway in the above picture. I mainly focused my June pruning hydrangeas on the right side of the path.

Boy did I get a surprise by this June pruning! The branches I pruned in June bloomed a bit later than the branches that were pruned in March but what actually happened was I was able to extend the bloom season more than six weeks so far and they are still going strong. Another notable difference between the March and June prunings is the March pruned limbs produced blooms as large as one foot long! The June pruned branches produced smaller but more blooms. When all massed together the effect is stunning. I have many blooms that are turning their customary chartreuse while many other blooms are just now coming into bloom. You can clearly see this in the first picture. The hydrangeas closest to the camera are the right side hydrangeas that were June pruned. Do you see the variations in the colors? Some are chartreuse while some are pure white. The chartreuse blooms are the older blooms. They were March pruned. 

I have always loved hydrangeas. They are my favorite shrub because there are so many different kinds of them that you can have blooms from April through September. They are also a very romantic shrub that is flashy and shows well no matter where you site them. All of my hydrangeas receive part sun to mostly shade but if I had full sun they would be fine with it as long as the soil was kept moist-depending on type. The paniculata type hydrangeas such as the 'Limelights' and PGs are fine with full sun. Arborescen and oakleaf type hydrangeas can even do well in full sun but will need supplemental watering. I am always one to push the envelope so I try all sorts of conditions for not just my hydrangeas but all of my plants. If a plant does not do well in one spot I will move it. Since we purchased a farm I am in the process of moving my hydrangeas. So far the 'Limelights' have not been disturbed but will be moving this winter-all of them. I plan to site these very hydrangeas along my driveway to be. They will be 8-10' apart in a full sun location. I think the effect of hydrangeas lining a driveway is a good one and have designed my new garden to reflect that. The 'Limelights' are so special and bloom for such a long time that they will be closest to the house so I can enjoy Limelight love on the farm....

in the garden....

Farmer Fix-it and I have been busy at work on the farm. Soon I'll be posting more and more posts about the projects we are accomplishing out there. While I have not completely abandoned my garden here I look at all the plants and picture them in another location now. It is hard for me to believe I would think that way but I actually thought it would be much harder to move than it has been. I am okay with it and am taking it one day at a time. Someday perhaps I'll look back at this post with love for those 'Limelights' because I honestly don't think I could ever have a better year than this year with them. Such is life. Things change, we change, and change can be good. It keeps us flexible and busy and striving for our dreams. I do hope all of your dreams come true...

in the garden.... 

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

A Little Landscaping Makes a HUGE Difference Plus Some Stars In the Garden

I can hardly believe tomorrow is the first day of August! Where has the time gone? What have I been up to? Well, I've been busy as always but what is very different for me is not blogging. I have to be honest, I haven't missed blogging either. I did not expect that and really don't want to lose my 'scrapbook of activities and gardens-called the blog' so I am trying to still put up a post or two while I go through this phase. In addition I do try to post things on my professional page found under Coach In the Garden on Facebook. Today's post is what I did this weekend-worked on my daughters property! 

Mr. Fix-it and I traveled to Louisville to visit my daughter (Liz) and new granddaughter (Everleigh who is four months old). Whenever I get together with Liz our activities include gardening. No big surprise there right? Both of my daughters garden and my older son likes to garden, though he doesn't do much. The younger son (the Jimster) refuses to garden outside. Something about icky spiders and dirt and heat. Ha! You all do know gardening is dirty right? And hard work? I don't really blame Jimmy at all but for the girls and I the benefits of a beautiful landscape far outweigh the discomforts of getting there.

Liz purchased this house last June and as a housewarming present I promised I would do a landscape design for her. The landscape design is completed and over the past year Liz has been slowly implementing the design in stages. It is hard to do this when you are pregnant and have a newborn so the going has been s-l-o-w for her. Much too slow. Enter Mom (garden helper) and Stepdad (baby duty) and some changes miraculously happen-overnight. Or so it seemed to the neighbors who were all quite curious as to what the hard working ladies next door were doing in the yard.

We started by collecting a ton of rocks (four small trailer loads) from an undeveloped part of the subdivision (with the developer's permission of course). The rocks match her house perfectly, are an awesome garden edger, and were FREE! Rocks are very expensive to purchase so if you can find a local source where they are usually very happy to have you haul them away then you should take advantage of it. Once we had a load of rocks we began laying cardboard on the garden to be. Liz had been collecting cardboard for a long time and had plenty to do the job. It is best to spray the grass prior to laying down the cardboard with a weed killer if you have the time and can safely do it without damaging nearby plants. In our case most of the grass had been sprayed but not all. This is not a big problem and it is still okay to cover the grass without spraying, but the grass will take a bit longer to die completely. This is not an issue if you don't plan to plant anytime soon (within two or three seasons). In Liz's case she is in no hurry. One more note, if you plan to plant a lot of perennials you might wish to use paper bags or newspapers in place of the cardboard. Cardboard is a bit tougher to cut through when planting but it is not an impossible job. I personally prefer cardboard under shrubs and paper under perennials.

Be sure to cover all grass thoroughly. Liz was pretty good at this job. My job was to trench the edge of the garden while she lay the cardboard and rocks. Then we all (Mr. Fix-it, Liz, and myself) spread the mulch over the cardboard. The mulch need be no deeper than 2-3". The point is to cover the ugly cardboard with pretty mulch and make the mulch thick enough that it will not wash away.

Her garden design encompassed a major part of the frontyard. There will actually be just about a ten foot grass path through the frontyard when all is said and done. Also, the hell strip will become a perennial garden. Looking at this view you can see we still have a lot to do, but for now the front garden closest to the house and the eastern side of the house is complete.

Part of planting this garden meant relocating laurels that were planted about two feet from the house in this location. The limelights are planted five feet from the house. They look quite forlorn out there in the middle of the garden but trust me when I say they will grow quickly and will soon fill in this space. I always allow for a few feet between the house and shrubs. It may be that as the 'Limelights' mature Liz may have to prune a bit to maintain that space but it won't be a big problem. Not like she would have to do if the laurels stayed in place. The laurels were moved out back as a border hedge. This subdivision is very new and there are still a ton of houses to be built and which are being built even as you read this post. None of the houses has much landscaping and what they do have is only a builder package next to the homes. Liz's house stands out in that she has planted a beautiful 'Sunburst' magnolia out front by the hell strip along with a few other small trees. Her laurel hedge out back really stands out too in a landscape that includes nothing but grass in all of the surrounding yards. You can see the houses are pretty close together so to differentiate the houses and make them more comfortable and appealing landscaping is needed. Liz will surely reap the benefits of a beautiful landscape soon and I suspect some of the other residents of the subdivision might try to catch up to her as well. Good landscaping can be contagious.

Now in my garden I have to share the 'Limelight' hydrangeas. They are slowly coming into full bloom. I pruned my half a dozen or so 'Limelights' back in March then again in June. The blooms will all be staggered. These blooms pictured here are on the growth from the March pruning. The June pruning is also producing blooms but at a slower rate than these fully opened flowers. The total effect is one that will enable me to enjoy the blooms for a longer period of time. Behind this group of four 'Limelights' is a large group of Joe Pye weed. To the left of the grouping are yellow cannas. Pink, yellows, blues, and whites are a good color combination for me. Out on our farm I have one complete garden dedicated to this color scheme (no reds or oranges are allowed-they are saved for the 'hot' garden). I will share more of the hydrangeas on my professional page found under Coach In the Garden on Facebook.

in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden