All of these beautiful hydrangea, pictured above, are self-seeded. Talk about a gift!
Here in the frozen north, it is sometimes difficult to grow hydrangeas at all. The arborescens–or smooth–hydrangea, is reliability hardy for us because it blooms on new wood. We don’t have to worry about last year’s buds being killed by something as silly as snow in May (yes, that happens–that’s why I call this the frozen north. Luckily it’s rare. Late frosts in May which kill the buds unfortunately are not rare).
For all I know, lots of people have yards full of these things–or they pull them out like weeds, and they can’t believe that I let them grow and worse yet am posting about them!
This is the only white arborescens hydrangea that I have planted. You can see to the right of it, one of those “feral” hydrangea has come up, with smaller, and very faintly blush flowers. The fern in between is self-sown as well. I did actually plant the liriope in front, lest you get the idea that my whole garden is volunteers.
And you know, lately, a garden of volunteers might be convenient. I could edit out what wasn’t wanted and keep what I liked. Or maybe that’s called weeding.
Gardendaze 