Hydrangea Obsession, Now and (seemingly) Forever

People are obsessed with Hydrangeas. They’re crazy about them today...and probably will be for years to come. You can find a multitude of articles at Better Homes and Gardens or Google within seconds of searching, and big name personalities like Martha Stewart write about them. But, Why?

Here are just a few likely reasons for the wild obsession with Hydrangeas:

All about that bloom

Tilt-A-Swirl® Bigleaf Hydrangea

It’s hard to find another plant, let alone another shrub, that gives homeowners a more beautiful flower. They’re substantial, durable, colorful, diverse, long-lasting and elegant. They transport the viewer to a magical place. Many Hydrangeas offer diverse colors and shades, including white, cream, green, pink, red, purple and blue.

Some Hydrangeas can be intentionally altered with soil additives that change the pH. For example, add aluminum sulfate to make soil more acidic and many varieties of Hydrangea macrophylla will change from pink or red to blue or purple (speaking of obsessions, blue Hydrangeas are all the rage right now!). 

A Hydrangea for everyone

Pink Dynamo™ Hydrangea

With so many varieties of Hydrangeas to choose from, there's an excellent choice for any outdoor space. Bloomin' Easy offers hydrangeas in a multitude of sizes. Whether you are looking for a statement hydrangea for your backyard or a smaller variety for your patio planter, we have something that will work for you. And, of course, all our hydrangeas follow the Bloomin' Easy promise of being low maintenance and easy to grow. 

Easy peasy

Flare™ Hardy Hydrangea

Most newly introduced Hydrangeas are quite easy to grow, with just a bit of care involved to keep them beautiful and performing well. Watering and pruning are probably the most common issues because Hydrangeas do have medium to high water requirements. The name even comes from Hydra, meaning water. If you plant Hydrangeas, know that you’ll need to provide regular, consistent water, especially for the first couple of years while they establish a good root system.

As far as pruning is concerned, recommendations will depend on things like species and variety. For example, Panicle Hydrangeas like our Candelabra®, Flare™ and Moonrock™ can be pruned in spring after frosts are over, resulting in fresh, healthy growth that produces flowers that bloom in July and last through fall. Some species, like Bigleaf Hydrangeas (Hyd. macrophylla) often bloom on old wood, so pruning must be done in late summer so that new flower buds can establish for blooming the next season. If you prune these in spring, you won’t get flowers that season. However, recent breeding has developed some amazing new Bigleaf Hydrangeas that bloom on new wood so you’ll always see flowers, even if you prune in spring.

Breeder breakthroughs

Starfield™ Bigleaf Hydrangea

Plant breeders are hard at work developing and selecting truly outstanding new Hydrangeas.

Reblooming qualities (blooming on new wood, described above) are only one of the attributes professionals are selecting for when cultivating new varieties. Breakthroughs in color and stature are also starting to make their way into the market.

Stay tuned for some rockstar Hydrangeas to release in Bloomin’ Easy 

Lasting appeal and function

Kimono™ Bigleaf Hydrangea

From spring through fall, Hydrangeas strut their stuff. By planting only a few in your garden beds or patio containers, you could have blooms all season long, changing colors and offering fresh blooms mixed with older flowers for a really interesting show.

Finally, there’s the cut flower appeal of Hydrangeas. You can cut fresh flowers to make beautiful indoor vase displays or wait until the flowers are spent to create other forms of interesting fall and holiday decor.

One of our brand partners, wholesale grower and propagator, Van Belle Nursery, is primarily focused on new and improved flowering shrubs and they tell us that Hydrangeas lead their sales in the US and Canada by a long shot. Garden centers and landscapers in North America simply can’t get enough to satisfy the appetite for Hydrangeas.

For now, this obsession continues to burn white hot. And, with the new plant pipeline full of unique varieties to come, the craze should continue for the foreseeable future.