Hydrangea Family, Maybe??

[Palmlin]

Hi, Garden Mates,

Do you know if this plant is in the hydrangea family? What's the name? Thanks in advance.

 

[Luis_pr]

Hello, Palmlin. The plant looks like a hydrangea paniculata but I am not sure about the specific cultivar as the blooms are still too small. To help identify paniculatas, it helps to post pictures as the bloom changes colors and see how tall the plant/blooms grows. For example, some paniculatas produce blooms that start lime green while the majority starts white. Until recently, paniculatas were large specimens (3 meters or more). They are the most sun tolerant of the hydrangeas and can be typically planted in full sun. However, here in Texas where I live, paniculatas will appreciate afternoon sun as the weather gets inhospitable during the summer. Paniculatas can attract pollinators with fragrance (not too potent compared to roses). But this scent works well so I see all kinds of insects sometimes flying around the blooms. As a result, I do not plant paniculatas near the front door so bees, etc will not bother visitors or build nests/hives. The blooms are panicle shaped. Some are lacy; others are not. Once the bloom is spent, it turns brown and stays attached to the plant until it falls down. Because some of the blooms can be large and heavy, the bloom's peduncle may last long and not decompose quickly so, blooms may stay attached to the plant for a whole year. Certain paniculatas have a tendency to flop but, as the plant gets older, the stems turn from green to more stronger/woodier colors like brown/gray/sandy. They like to have organic mulch year around and will feed off the decomposing mulch so I usually fertilize them for 1-3 years and then quit but maintain 5-10 cms of mulch year around. To fertilize, you can use organic compost, composted manure, cottonseed meal or a general purpose, slow release, chemical fertilizer with a NPK Ratio of around 10-10-10 or so. If your growing season is short, a single fertilizer application in Spring is enough as hydrangeas are not heavy feeders like roses.

 

[Palmlin]

Hi, Luis_pr,

It's not in the hydrangea family, it's a Plectranthus Verticillatus, better known as Swedish Ivy. As a matter of fact, I have a hydrangea paniculata, the one called "Limelight" and it's a first for me so I'm grateful for your tips. I was wondering if should cut the blooms off once spent, but according to your post, they stay on the plant until they fall off. Thank you so very much...

 

[Luis_pr]

Hello, Palmlin. I looked at a few online pictures of PV and the pictures still look too much like paniculata hydrangeas. I did notice two things that you can use to compare.

The blooms are somewhat similar but PV blooms should brown out and fall to the ground. Paniculata blooms should change colors ending in brown and stay attached to the plant for almost a year before falling to the ground on their own. PV blooms in Spring and sporadically through the year. Paniculatas bloom only once (the blooms do not necessarily all open at once). The flower buds develop inside the stems, from mid/late Spring to early Summer (depending on one's geographical location) and when the flower buds open in June-July, they resemble tiny broccoli heads.

Also, PV has glossy, soft, round to obovate, 2.5-3.5" long leaves. The leaves in the pictures posted are more broadly oval, very toothed/serrated and longer looking than 2-3" long PV leaves.

But... you can see them better than I. Have a good day and enjoy your Limelight. My compact version, Little Lime now has brown blooms but, in other parts of the country, Limelights are probably either green or a green-pink mix.

 

[Palmlin]

Okay, Luis_pr, I'm tracking now and please pardon my oversight. I thought you were responding to my most recent post about this little one which someone in the forum identified as Plectranthus Verticillatus (Swedish Ivy). It was only when I read your latest response (and saw the pics of the hydrangea) that I relaized you weren't referring to the PV. As you can see, I posted the hydrangea query back in Jun and don't recall getting any hits previously, so I did the research and concluded that paniculata hydrangea (Limelight) was the likely choice. Your post is confirmation! I'm currently in South Korea and have found some good nurseries, but the plants aren't identified and the employees do not speak English. This is why I turn to the Gardening Forum for help. Thanks for being there.

 

[Luis_pr]

Ah, mystery solved! Glad to help. Yes, that one is a PV. See if you can install translation software on a smartphone or use Google Translate. It may help considerably. I use translate.google.com with written communications when helping some folks in Europe via forums but to translate spoken words, a software that 'hears' the speaker and translates to English in writing (and vice-versa), that may be more helpful in your case. Unfortunately, I only use google but try to research apps online if you have a smartphone there. Note: google supposedly can receive voice inputs (I remember reading that somewhere) but I have not seen this capability on web browsers so, maybe it is available in apps instead.