Good morning from the garden.

Well, we’ve had some exciting times in the garden lately.  We had severe thunderstorms blow through, two nights in a row a week or two ago.

We survived the first storm with just a few small branches strewn about, but the second one took down a sizeable limb from our neighbor Ken’s remaining tree.

If you’ve been following me for long, you’ll remember that Ken had a very large tree in his backyard cut down last year because he was worried it would come down in a storm.

They cut it into sections and then lifted it out (right over the top of our house) using a crane.

At the time he also had some deadwood cut out of his remaining smaller tree.

So in an ironic turn of events, he lost a big branch from that smaller tree in the 2nd storm.

And of course, the branch fell right onto the new hydrangea hedge that I planted last summer after Ken had that larger tree removed.

Fortunately it didn’t really do any damage.

The hydrangeas bounced right back.

These are Quick Fire Fab hydrangeas.  So far my hedge is only about 3′ tall, and according to Proven Winners they will max out at 6′ to 8′.  However, they also say that about Limelight hydrangeas and my Limelights are easily 10′ tall or more.  So I’m hoping to end up with a tall hedge here.

The Quick Fire Fab are the earliest to bloom of the panicle hydrangeas.  The flowers start out white (as you can see in the photo with the branch on them), and then slowly go from white to pale pink to bright pink to deep red by fall.

I think the color they are right now is my favorite.

In comparison, Limelight hydrangeas are the latest of the panicle hydrangeas to bloom.  The flowers on mine are only just barely starting to open up.

And they are still the pretty lime color that gives them their name.  They will gradually fade to white, and then start to turn a pretty coppery sort of pink for fall.

I absolutely love the Limelight hydrangea, but when I was deciding what hydrangea to use for my new hedge last year I thought it would be nice to have a hydrangea that blooms a few weeks earlier to extend hydrangea season.

For those of us who garden in a cold climate (I’m in a suburb of St. Paul, MN, zone 4b to 5a), a panicle hydrangea is definitely the way to go.  So far I have found them to be pretty much impervious to a cold winter.  As I’ve mentioned before, our last winter was pretty hard on plants.  We had some days with temps well below zero, but hardly any snow.  We need that snow to protect the plants that are in the ground.  I lost quite a few things in my gardens, but the new hydrangeas came through with flying colors even though I had only planted them in August.

I wish we could get those gorgeously vibrant macrophylla hydrangeas to bloom reliably here.  You know, the ones that are bright pink …

Or blue …

But I’ve never had any luck with them, including the Endless Summer varieties (I took the two photos above at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania).

I’ll just have to settle for the more subtle look of the panicle hydrangeas in my garden.

Earlier this week I decided to try a bit of an experiment to see how well the Quick Fire Fab hydrangeas will hold their color when dried.

So I cut a few and popped them into a bucket with about 2″ of water at the bottom.

Next I’ll put them in a cool, dark, dry location and let them dry out.

It’s possible that it’s too early to successfully dry these, I usually wait until the flowers have started drying out just a bit on their own before cutting them to dry the rest of the way.  But these Quick Fire Fabs will have turned red by then (and of course, I’ll also dry some then), so I hope I can preserve some in this pretty blush pink.

If you’re a fan of dried hydrangeas, you may want to go back and check out my post on how to make a dried hydrangea wreath.

Or for more details on drying hydrangeas, check out this post.

Are you able to grow hydrangeas where you are?  If so, which ones are your favorites?

Leave a comment and let me know.