In the Spotlight: Limelight Hydrangea (hydrangea paniculata limelight)

Hydrangea lovers want three basic things from their plant:  abundant flowers, colour and hardiness.  Limelight hydrangeas fulfill all three requirements spectacularly.  Limelight hydrangeas are extremely hardy for the zone 3 garden, will reward you with plentiful lime tinted panicle flowers that turn white in July and then, often turn pink in late summer.  

Plant your hydrangea in rich moist soil.  Mix in a bit of compost such as Sea Soil to enrich the planting site.  Limelight can handle full sun but morning sun until 1 pm is favourable for most hydrangeas.  A generous mulch of wood chips will help keep the roots cool and help maintain moisture.  

Limelight hydrangeas grow about a metre tall and wide.  They flower on new wood.  This hydrangea offers easy care and stunning displays of blooms beginning in the summer.  Hardy zones 3-8.

Autumn Leaves

It's the most colourful time of the year when the chlorophyll breaks down and the green recedes in the leaves.  The colours that remain dazzle the eye.  The air is cool and filled with the scent of fall.  Leaves crunch underfoot, the sunflower that sought the sun now feeds the birds, the mums and rudbeckia compliment the season.  

It's so pretty, isn't it?  Yet it's a tender goodbye to summer.

In the Spotlight: Little Lime Hydrangea (hydrangea paniculata Little Lime)

Little Lime sits on my front porch prior to planting

Little Lime Hydrangea is a compact hardy plant that grows approximately 3-4 feet tall and wide in the prairie region of Canada.  Limelight hydrangea is Little Lime's "sibling."  Little Lime looks like Limelight in a slightly more diminutive form.

The blooms open a lime green colour in short panicles on strong stems in the summer then turn a shade between beige and pink/burgundy for late summer and autumn.

Extremely hardy, Little Lime is hardy zones 3-8. This hydrangea grows best in part sun to sun and blooms on new wood.

A light trim to Little Lime in late winter to early spring is all the pruning necessary. Fertilize with a slow release balanced fertilizer once new growth is evident.  Supplemental feedings of a fertilizer with a higher middle number, phosphorus, is beneficial until the second week in August.  

Little Lime's flowers make terrific long-lasting cut flowers which can be dried indoors if desired.