Dear
Hydrangea Enthusiasts,
Welcome to
the April 2014 edition of
the Hydrangeas Plus¨ e-mail
newsletter.
Happy Tax Day!
WhatÕs happening at
Hydrangeas Plus¨
I
hope you all have a great spring.
WeÕre really getting busy here so be sure to leave a message or
send me
an email if you have a question.
IÕll get back to you as soon as I can. Thursdays
are usually a good day to
call. Remember we do mail order on
Monday so I label the boxes and have to turn around and get
Tuesday orders queued so please be
patient. I call that day crazy
Monday, as if Mondays werenÕt bad enough for just being a Monday.
We hope that
you have hydrangeas on the
brain! We are starting to see some
buds on the serrata and early blooming
macrophylla
types. ItÕs a little early for us
but with the beautiful (non-rain) weather weÕve been having, it is no
wonder
these plants are flourishing.
Kristin was a
little late getting this
newsletter together. Sorry for
being so tardy. IÕm coaching my
daughterÕs spring soccer team again and weekends are so full!
Spring Overstock sale Đ
BIG BIG SALE
Sale is April 26 Đ May 10, 10am to 4pm daily only here at the nursery. DonÕt miss out. IÕm not sure what we will have but come and find out. Sale prices are only good at the nursery. We grow more than just hydrangeas. This is our annual ŌSpring CleaningĶ sale where we sell everything we have left over and make room for more plants.
Our
address is 6543 S. Zimmerman Road Aurora OR 97002
and directions can be found here http://www.hydrangeasplus.com/directions.html. No presales will be allowed
and we ask
that pets stay at home for safety reasons.
Every
hydrangea wonÕt be on sale but we
will have our retail area set up for browsing on the weekends when we
can staff
it. We are selling out of lots of
varieties so feel free to order now and pickup during our open hours.
Sale Đ Free shipping
For those of you unable to come to Oregon for our
sale, we
are offing for a very limited time, free
shipping off orders of $199
or greater. This offer is good just April 15th
to May 1st (not
retroactive to shipped orders Đ sorry). Orders
must ship before June 3rd, 2014 and is good to continental
US addresses only!
ItÕs a coupon code and if you have
trouble using the coupon
just let me know.
Use the coupon code, FREE (below your shopping cart) once your order has reached $199 (thatÕs just five three-year hydrangeas). You wonÕt be able to see the coupon is accepted and in effect until your reach the check out stage. If there is an error with the coupon, you will get a purple box at the top of your shopping cart that says Ôyou have entered an incorrect coupon code!Õ. But again, if you have trouble, just email or call and I can fix it for you.
Working and office
schedule
WeÕre
off and running, literally this time of the year. If
the internet ordering isnÕt for you,
youÕre not alone and weÕre here for you.
If IÕm not in the office or on the other line, please leave a
message or
email me at [email protected].
IÕm a working owner, the big boss, the lone office employee and
I like
to get my hands dirty and not sit inside and do paper pushing on sunny
days. But IÕm never far away.
Mondays are totally crazy now with mail
order frenzy but otherwise, I try to stay in the office when I'm not
chauffeuring
the kids to school and activities.
A few questions and answers
from the last
few weeks.
Q. A friend decided to "help" in my garden last year and pruned a number of hydrangeas while I was sick. Quite a few died or never bloomed. What can I do to support the survivors? Can I safely deadhead ones that bloomed even marginally? I notice in my backyard that the plants that were performing well got more sun. ... I am new to your site and have made some selections for replacements. I have spots for both large and smaller varieties. Any suggestions? I am heartbroken since a number of them were planted in memory of friends and family.
A. You can't really pick a bad hydrangea! They love our
Pacific NW with all the rain, lack of humidity and generally cooler
temperatures. Hydrangeas tend to be blue/purple for us due to our
acidic
soil.
Some of my favorites(this week) are
Horben
Marechal
Foch
Merritt's
Beauty
Holstein
Alpengluhen
(or Glowing Embers)
Blaumeise
Mini
Penny
All
Summer Beauty
To
help the survivors, mulch the base so that new shoots can
grow. Sever pruning often causes the plant to go into overdrive
so don't
forget to make additional nutrition available, now. Fertilizer
with a
balanced mix of NPK, like 10-10-10 or 12-12-12 is good. Not too
high on
the nitrogen (N) or else you'll get lots of green growth quickly.
Keep
them watered if mother nature doesn't help
with that
part.
Most
plants should come back unless there was a really cold snap shortly
after
pruning or if they cut below the lowest leaf node on the stem.
Hopefully
they will come back eventually but in the meantime, just keep them fed
and
watered.
Q. My flowers bloom in the spring, very vibrant colors then by mid summer I lose all color and the mop heads turn brown. I have a sprinkler system so the plants get a lot of water. I never lost a plant, just the flowers turning brown. I have never added any amendments since they were planted in 2008 nor pruned them for fear of them not flowering the following year. They are getting quite large and I would like to cut them back. These are Endless Summer¨ hydrangeas. Can you tell me what may cause this?
A.
Could it be that the blooms are burning in the
sun?
They may need some shade as the hot sun tends to drain the pigments
from the
petals.
Most
hydrangeas can take a lot of sun but some varieties
tend to hold up poorly in lots of sun. To some extent, more water
on the
hot days can help but not completely cure the browning of the petals.
Another
reason that hydrangeas lose their pigments is too
much amendment. I have found that if I over do the aluminum
sulfate, the
pigments fade faster.
Do you ever lose the whole
plant? That can happen in hot, humid climates when the plant is
over
watered. The roots shut down after drowning and the bloom is
usually the
first to show decline as the blooms turn to brown.
Pruning
should be done after flowering so that you don't lose bloom. Some of the new wood blooming varieties
have a tendency to fade faster, too.
These bloom on the new wood so feel free to prune a little in
early
spring but not more that a few leaf nodes. Prune a lot after
bloom
(probably through September is alright). The Endless Summer can
sometimes
generate a 2nd bloom in the fall if you cut off those brown ones in
July, too.
I have heard this a lot - blooms turning brown - from folks in the
eastern part
of the country on these hydrangeas. I think it has been the heat
and
humidity during the past few summers that has contributed to their
browning. These new wood bloomers are more affected by the hot
weather
than some of the old wood blooming varieties that have darker pigments.
Try
to resist the urge to over water the hydrangeas during the hottest part
of the
day. Early morning or late, late at night is best. But,
some hot
afternoons will cause them to wilt; I'll bet but try to avoid the
watering at
that time. I think that contributes to the browning as well.
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Sincerely,
Kristin VanHoose
Hydrangeas Plus¨
http://www.hydrangeasplus.com