Shrubbing along nicely

10:48am Saturday 30th August 2008

HYDRANGEAS are fattening in the borders, plumply filling spaces among dahlias and asters and other late summer flowers.

Love them or hate them, these shrubs are perennially popular, large pink or blue balls of flowers spilling over garden walls and brightening up parks and the edges of car parks from mid-summer onwards.

If you don’t care for the gaudy mop heads, don’t write off the hydrangea family altogether because it includes many other beautiful members.

The deciduous Hydrangea arborescens ‘Grandiflora’, for example, is a wonderful specimen with large cream-coloured flowers and fresh green foliage.

The flowers fade to green then brown as they die back and can be left for winter interest for many weeks. The flowers can weigh down the slender stems, so some subtle staking may be necessary.

Although this plant is recommended for most sites and soils, I have found it to cope better with more shade than sun, and with a moist rather than a dry soil. The whole plant quickly droops in the heat, especially when young.

Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ is a little more compact, but has enormous flowers, sometimes as much 30cm/12ins across. Like ‘Grandiflora’ the stems may need supporting to carry their heavy blooms.

Both shrubs flower on wood produced in the same year and so need pruning by a half or more in early spring. This will produce the new shoots required for a good display of flowers. Shrubs hard pruned annually also tend to carry much larger flowers than those left unattended.

The conical shaped blooms of Hydrangea paniculata make a change to the rounded heads of Hydrangea arborescens described above, although the colouring is usually similar.

The variety Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ has, as its name suggests, very large flowers, but there are others to chose from such as the variety ‘Kyushu’ with glossy leaves and plenty of larger sterile cream-coloured flowers surrounding a greenish fertile fuzz of tiny blooms.

This is a sturdy plant with strong stems that can be cut back in early spring to about half their current size.

Such pruning improves flowering and stops it getting too tall and leggy, but it isn’t absolutely necessary if a taller plant is required. Left unpruned, most of the paniculatas will grow around 3m/10ft high, with pruned specimens growing about half that height.

Weekend catch-up

AUGUST is a good time to take summer cuttings from shrubs and tender perennials, and even though we are at the end of the month it is still worthwhile taking a few and seeing if they will root.

Make each cutting around 15cm long cutting just below a leaf joint. Remove all but the topmost leaves, dip the cut end in rooting hormone powder or gel and push the cuttings into a pot filled with pre-watered gritty compost.

Cover the pot with a clear plastic bag secured with an elastic band and position in a warm shady place in a greenhouse or indoors. The cuttings will take a couple of months to root, after which the cover can be removed and the pot placed in a lighter spot.

Once large enough, the cuttings can be potted up individually and grown on. Tender perennials will need to be over-wintered somewhere warm, but hardier shrubs can be hardened off and put outside in a sheltered spot or planted in their permanent places.

Flower Show Competition

CONGRATULATIONS to Mrs Palmer, Bishopthorpe; Y. Macalister, Husthwaite; I. Roe, York; C. Wood, Pickering; D. Bailey, Wilberfoss and J. Elvin, Brandsby, who have each won a pair of tickets to the 2008 Harrogate Autumn Flower Show. Your prizes are in the post. The answers to the competition questions were: The North of England Horticultural Society, the Heavy Onion Competition and 46,500 square feet. The tickets are in the post.

If you didn’t win a prize but would like to visit the show, there is time to apply for advance tickets. These will each have a £2 discount, making them £10 instead of the £12 they will cost at the gate.

Tickets can be booked by telephone by credit/debit card on 0870758 3333 Monday-Friday 8.30am-4.30pm. They can also be booked online by credit/debit card at www.flowershow.org.uk. This is 24-hour secure on-line booking. The closing date for reduced price advance tickets is noon on Tuesday.

Gardening TV and radio

Tomorrow

8am, Radio Humberside, Gardening Phone in. Telephone number 01482 225959.

9am, Radio Leeds, Gardening with Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. John Cushnie, Bob Flowerdew, Matthew Biggs and chairman Eric Robson answer questions from gardeners in the East Riding. Meanwhile Pippa Greenwood and Chris Beardshaw look at lawn care.

Friday

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World Special. Rachel de Thame guides viewers along the 20-metre long border she created from scratch last summer.

Saturday, September 6.

7am, Radio York, Plant Surgery. Presented by Julia Booth with horticulture expert Nigel Harrison. Telephone number 01904 641641.

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