JW: I’m Judy Wagley, here at Elm Creek Garden Center in Farwell, strolling around and admiring many different varieties of hydrangeas with Mike Jenkins, who, along with his wife, Janice, has owned the business since 1987. Thanks for spending time with me today, Mike.
MJ: Well, thank you, Judy.
JW: Mike, hydrangeas are flowering shrubs. The showy flowers are not only striking in the landscape, but also in fresh or dried arrangements, and folks really love them. But getting to those flowers could be tricky. Would you give us a primer on hydrangeas?
MJ: Oh, absolutely. You have to remember the first place to start a conversation with people that are growing hydrangeas is the USDA hardiness zone, and what zone do you live in. The most common hydrangeas that people really love to grow are the ones that they really remember—those are the macrophylla varieties. The old mop heads people would call them, and they're really only consistently flowering in zone six. We're in zone five. So if you're going to grow macrophylla varieties, you need to think about what to do to protect those plants. Second thing I like to get in a conversation with people is where to grow them. Hydrangeas like a very rich soil. A lot of times in northern Michigan, we have either a lot of sand, or we have a lot of clay. So it's going to be very important to amend the soil. We like recommending products that have peat moss in them as well as maybe some composted products. The other thing is sun and shade. So hydrangeas do better in a kind of a mixed shade situation, they can tolerate a little sun, but they do much, much better in a what we call a partial shade environment.
JW: Can they be planted right out in the open or do they need some protection?
That's an excellent question, Judy. And ideally, if we're talking partial shade, you're going to be in a protected spot anyway. So we do recommend typically the east side or maybe the northeast side of a home that's going to be protected from winter winds. That's especially true if you're growing those macrophylla varieties. Now the panicle varieties are much more forgiving, they consistently blossom in your zone five and even zone four varieties, and they are much more forgiving if you want to plant them a little bit more in the open.
JW: Mike, to clarify, the macrophylla varieties have sort of, like you said, the big mop head flowers and the panicle have more of the cone-shaped flowers.
MJ: Yes, absolutely. And the difference in the macrophylla and the panicle varieties is the macrophylla can only blossom on two year old wood. That's where we get into issues in Central Michigan. So the macrophylla varieties, being that they have to blossom into year old wood, all of the buds of the flowering buds are produced in the year before they flower. If we have a very severe winter. Or if you're planting your plant in a high wind situation, or if you get a really cold winter, and those buds get desiccated, you're not going to get flowers the next year or if the plant dies down to the ground. It may survive, but now it's got to grow on new wood. So you're gonna lose all your blossoms.
JW: Or if you prune it at the wrong time?
MJ: Absolutely. You cannot prune your macrophylla varieties in the spring, you will cut off all of your blossoming wood.
JW: So that might be part of the problem about why aren't my hydrangeas blooming?
MJ: Yes, yes. But more often than not, what I see it's not so much the pruning issue. It's not protecting the plant and having it planted in the wrong spot and having a poor soil that you're not amending and providing the right environment for it to grow.
JW: Mike Do you have a favorite hydrangea?
MJ: My favorite is the old time PeeGee hydrangea and PeeGee stands for paniculata grandiflora, which are the panicle varieties. What a lot of people don't understand about the panicle varieties is what you're actually viewing when you're seeing those flowers is not really the flowers, you're actually seeing what we call the sepals which are the outer part of the flower. The inner part is the actual flower in a panicle variety. And that's why you have a blossom that lasts so long. It's not really the blossom-- it's the outer part of the flower-- and you get multi flowerets in the panicle. The other nice thing about the panicle varieties is they change in color over time as you progress through the summer. A lot of the PeeGee varieties go from a white to a dark magenta by the end of the season. And when we start getting some very hard frost, I'll turn almost a burnt red. It's so beautiful!
JW: Mike Jenkins from Elm Creek Garden Center in Farwell, thanks for helping us grow beautiful hydrangeas!
MJ: Oh you're welcome. I'm pleased to be here!
