Growing Hydrangea Bushes

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen from vanveenbulbs.com. I want to learn all about hydrangea bushes today, how to grow a hydrangea bush, so please join me and we'll learn a little bit about hydrangeas. This particular hydrangea is a smaller hydrangea. It's considered a dwarf so it doesn't get that big, so I really like it around the front entryway, and it's really a low growing, and it prefers shade by far. In the sun they always fry on me. They just do not like full hot sun, in the afternoon especially. Sometimes, if you've got a little bit of morning sun you can get away with afternoon shade and they'll still do really well. But I just love hydrangeas cause' they don't really ask a whole lot. They just grow with not a whole lot of water even, and yeah, they still need some water, but they're really easy to grow. So first, my rule of thumb is I only plant em' where there's other plants will grow that grow in the shade, so if a weed won't grow then it won't grow. So hydrangeas like good drainage, so they want good compost or potting soil or they don't want to sit right in clay or they're not going to have any drainage. So raised beds are great, or around fir trees where they're getting some light or some heat is great as well, cause' you don't want to put em' in too much shade either. But they'll grow pretty much anywhere. So there's different types of nutrition too that determines the colors, so if they are high in acid or low in acidity then they'll have different ranges of colors, but from my experience it still has something to do with the individual plants. I've never had a pink one turn truly blue on me, and because I don't put any chemicals in my garden I never find out. I just put em' in compost, so I figure this one is the color it's going to be, so I never know if it's going to be a different color cause I really don't use any chemicals in my yard. Make sure that they don't get too dried out though. They cannot get bone dry where they'll just start losing their leaves, so a neat trick is as soon as they start going limp a little bit or they're a little bit look like they're droopy give em' water, and then don't water em' again til' they look just a little bit droopy. Don't let em' die completely. But the nice thing is if they do kind of die back completely, or if you have a bad freeze and they just turn to mush chop em' down as far as you can to where the brown is but there's still some green stems; wherever there's green stem there's life, so if it's hard it's fine. If it's mushy or breaks right away then it's dead. So you trim it down. So all you have to do is trim it down a bit, and it'll grow new growth again when it heats up in the spring. So, hydrangeas pretty much will live anywhere with very little care. They're one of my favorite plants. And it's like throwing a party. If you have a nice shady area get a hydrangea and plant it. If it seems like it's too hot put in a little more shade. If it looks like it's reaching for the sun give it a little more sun. Let the plant tell you what to do."