I was at the Syracuse Fair and saw my first Oakleaf! It was love at first sight! (I had to ask, I didn't know what it was.) They didn't know what type, just Oakleaf. The Horticultural Building is very big and in the center is an outdoor garden. The plant was about 10' tall, peeling bark, and was still blooming( Aug 31st) though alot were drying.I think they were single blooms. I came home and immediately started researhing them on the web. I guess it was either "Snowflake or Snow Queen". I'm confused because I read that the one with single blooms is spring flowering and the doubles are late bloomers but this one was single and blooming in late Aug. HELP! I am about a 2hr. drive south of Syracuse near Scranton and figured if they could grow one I could too. ( Hope that's not wishful thinking!) I even joined Dave's Garden just to talk to you wonderful people about this subject. ANY advice would be greatly appreciated. Also should I plant now or wait til spring? Thanks Danielle.
Can I have an Oakleaf in NE Pa.?
Welcome to Dave's Sugarbell. I'm not a hydrangea expert, just a hydrangea lover. To get the best advice possible, it would be very helpful if you could provide us with your growing zone.
You should have no problem growing oakleaf. Most Oakleaf are hardy to zone 5 and according to zone you are 6.
Sugarbell, I've seen a number of them thriving in the Poconos. That should be fairly similar to your conditions.
Spring bloomage on oakleafs? Hmm, probably not where you live. Either of those two varieties of oakleaf hydrangea will bloom starting sometime during the middle of Summer, say around June-July. While oakleafs will bloom later in the northern states than in the southern states, Spring just sounds too early.
Now leaf out should commence in Spring but it should take a while longer for the blooms. Hydrangea macrophylla does blooms early (in Spring), between April and May depending on the specific variety. Maybe that is what you read.
Snow Flake has superb looking double-flowered panicles, gorgeous green leaves, a better constitution than the oakleaf species and excellent Fall Foliage. The blooms change from white to rose/pink. It would not be rare to see one or two late blooms sometimes in August.
Early Fall is a good time to plant hydrangeas. Make sure the soil is well draining and try to keep it moist, not wet. Apply 3-4" of mulch past the drip line and do not fertilize until June of each year. A 1/2 to 1 cup of manure, compost, cottonseed meal will work for a new/small shrub. Down here, I have to choose a location where I can protect the leaves from the intense summer sun by 11am or 12pm. Where you live, you can do the same or even start protecting from the sun as late as 3pm. Observe when the ones that you have seen already get shade and do similarly. Oakleafs do not like their feet wet and will develop root rot if exposed to wet soil for long periods of time so water them when the soil feels almost dry only.
This message was edited Sep 13, 2009 1:33 AM
Thanks for your responses! I am technically in zone 5. It is not unheard of to have 10-15 degrees below here for short periods in Jan or Feb, but lately we have been having more like zone 6 winters. The spot I am thinking of would have sun until about 4-5pm. My biggest worry is that it is out in the open, no wind block. That may make a difference. As for trying to decide which one to get, I don't know if I would like blooms so heavy that they make the whole plant droop over. Is this the case with Snowflake? I like the great pyramidal shape and blooms that stay erect. If the double blooms do this that's even better yet.Thanks again for all your help!
Hi,
I am in zone 5a and grow Snowflake and Alice on exposed sights. I was trying to grow Snow Queen but it tended to diminish. Then I picked up some books by Michael Dirr (sort of the horticultural God of hydrangeas) and he noted that his Snow Queens all petered out too. He LOVES Snowflakes and has a bunch of them at his home.
Snowflake is magnificent. I do burlap mine in the winter because the site is very exposed. But the result is what you see in the picture. It can take full sun with some supplementary water. I am establishing a second one. I cannot recommend it more highly. If I can grow it on a windy, exposed site, you can too!
Donna
Typos!
This message was edited Oct 23, 2009 6:53 AM
Thanks DonnaMack,
My site sounds exactly like yours (full sun in summer, open and windy in winter).You helped me make up my mind between "Snowflake" and"Snow Queen", now tell me which you would reccomend between "Alice and "Snowflake". I may eventually find room for 2 and have both but for now I need to decide which to start with. From what I read "Alice" can take sun a little better, and all the pics I see are of pink flowers. Do they start white and turn pink or are they always pink? Are they similar in size? I'm thinking "Alice" is bigger?
Donna, You are always so helpful!
Sugarbell, I've never seen you visit the MidAtlantic forum. Please feel free to drop by and join in on our conversations. We need more Pennsylvania gardeners!
Hope to see you there.
Stormy, you're sweet.
Sugarbell, the difference between Snowflake and Alice is that the flowers on Snowflake has, Dirr says "multiple sepals emerging from older ones, creating a double-flowered appearace". The flowers are DOUBLE, and they are spectacular. They are as much as a foot long here, and that creates some arching of the branches, but not like 'Harmony', which bends to the ground. Absolutely no droopiness. I've got to tell you, I just love this plant. It gets quite big, but I love that.
Alice is, for me, about 25% smaller, with a somewhat slower growth rate, and the flowers are single. It's a lovely plant too, and I think the second best of all the oakleafs, and wonderful very fine if you have a little less space. The flowers age to a a lovely rosy pink from white.
Both plants take full sun if you water them. If its really hot (90's) and they droop a bit, I go out with a 2 gallon water can and give each two gallons. I probably have to do that a couple of times. They are wonderful in that they signal to you that they need water. They don't just keel over and die. And they bloom much better in sun.
Watch out for growers who try to substitute other cultivars. You are right about the droopiness of some. When Oakleafs came out they started developing a billion cultivars. Some arch too much and some like Snow Queen in the north, don't persist (I went through SIX).
If you have a local library see if you can find Michael Dirr's book "Hydrangeas". The detail is incredible, very helpful and I was thrilled to find that he loves Snowflake to death, and why.
I'm very happy to help. Please feel free to ask more questions.
Donna
Hi Stormyla, I know nothing about MidAtlantic Forum but I will look for it!Thanks
Donna, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help.I wasn't sure what to do and I'm so glad you saved me time and frustration from trying and losing Snow Queen.I will definately go with Snowflake and maybe down the road get Alice also.I am going to Amazon right now to look for Dirr's Hydrangea book. Thanks so much!!!
This thread is reminding me that I need to move my Oakleaf to a sunnier spot. It didn't bloom at all this year!
Sugarbell, here ya go:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/region_mida/all/
You are so welcome, Danielle. Just one last note. You can plant in spring or fall but it's safest to plant in the spring. If you plant in fall you should make sure the baby is well watered and wrap it in burlap. It will give them a nice moist season to establish itself.
You will LOVE Dirr's book. Although he is in Georgia his observations are based on hydrangeas in Illlinois and Massachusetts as well. He really rocks.
Donna
We have grown OLH for the past two years and have just fallen in love with them. I have rooted several from our first one and have planted them around the yard. The came the Fall of 09 and somewhere around 25 inches of rain in the last month. Our yard is red clay and I have composted heavily for the past six years. You can not tell that our soil is clay because I put so much compost down it looks dark. I noticed the OLH in the new area I planted this Summer are not looking so good and believe it is from too much water. Now the ones on the north side of the house that have been in the ground two years are starting to look sick. It has been beautiful here for the last week but this morning it is raining again. I just do not know what I can do to help these guys pull through, except maybe watering with H2O2.
kenboy, I lost an Alice due to heavy rains in the area several years ago. They are very very sensitive to being in wet soil so I concluded that in our clayish soil, I cannot plant them in a location that is flat. Because of the rains we have had for the last month, I am not surprised that your oakleafs are starting to look unhappy. We just got 5" of rain overnight!!!
I lost 2 small Oakleaf "Little Honey"s.. One did not make it through the winter. I had caged them both and stuffed them with leaves. The other seemed to just drown in all of the rain. They were small mail order plants. I'm thinking that I need to plant a larger specimen to insure survival, but have not been able to find one at a local nursery. Does anyone else have any experience with this one? Any tips?
Hi stormyla,
My experience was the same as yours. I tried a small mail order plant the summer before last. It didn't survive the summer drought; even though I kept it watered regularly. I believe that it's root system was just too immature. Since then, I only plant & have had great success with 1 gallon or larger potted plants. My 2 Annabelles are doing so well that I plan to try the Oakleaf again in 2010.
Thanks, Greenbrain. The challenge is going to be in trying to find one. I was thinking more of a 3 or 5 gallon sized one. Most nurseries only carry plants they know to be reliably hardy and problem free and this one may still be an unknown.
Duh, where's my brain? I know an excellent source: Plant and Gnome:
http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/2494/
I got one of my Snowflakes from Chris, the head Gnome. He's a Brit, a lovely man, does it all himself. Answers his phone. Shipping is so cheap it's joke. He takes checks! And as of a year ago I got $8.00 shipping on a three foot plant.
Forest Farm is superb too but shipping is intense. I got a snowflake from them too. It's the big hulking one in the shot above.
Chris is your best bet. Get a Snowflake!!!
Donna
But get spring delivery!!!
Donna
Thanks, Donna! There you go again, being your usual helpful self. Thanks for the tips.
Stormy,
Who could help but give info to some of the sweet as you and some of the others on this forum? And I really like being able to spare others the kind of trouble and expense that makes people give up gardening. The world needs more beauty. And more happy gardeners.
D
My "Little Honey" and "Sikes Dwarf" have easily made it through two zone 5a winters. Both bloomed well this spring after lows of -17 last winter. They get absolutely no winter protection. 'Little Honey' is small, but just gorgeous. The light golden yellow - lime green leaves hold that color all season. It's gets some direct sun. A neighbor has had an unknown cultivar of H. quercifolia for over twenty years. It's enormous and blooms every single year. If you have the space and the correct soil conditions they are definitely shrubs to have.
Thanks, Snapple. What size was your Little Honey when planted?
Small! About 18" from RareFind Nursery (NJ) and very healthy. They have a good rating on GardenWatchdog. http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/1962/
The only advice I have to offer about Oakleafs -I doubt you really need any ;) - is that they need a very fast draining soil. I think all H. quercifolias do. They wont tolerate "wet feet".
Snapple, Thanks. That may have been the problem with one of them. Mine were even smaller, under 12".
I was real, real happy with the size and health of the stock RareFind sent. For the money in comparison to other online providers they offered the largest plant. Drainage is not an issue here as the soil is excessively sandy. It's compost, compost, compost to get any water holding capacity. I have to amend any new bed liberally with compost and especially peat. I think half of Canada must be missing by now and buried in my gardens.
I had clay, clay, clay over hardpan and compost, compost, compost was my answer too. I actually plant with 50-80% compost. When I dig a whole now, after ten years, there are rampant worm parties going on. I used to say yuk but now I say hi there!
Donna
LOL - Compost does seem to be the answer to most poor soil conditions. My hat's off to all you clay gardeners though. Sand is easy to dig and amend. Clay takes so much more effort and determination. Hardpan! OMG I have dealt with that at the botanical garden where I volunteer. Myself and about 5 others punched though a 4" layer to plant over 500 mixed annuals in a large full sun bed. My arms and wrists hurt for days afterward. It was a beautiful show though when it was done. We also mixed compost into every single planting hole. Every.......single.......one.
Bless you! I water the area when I have to dig thru one of those clayish layers and often times will "schedule" work around advertised heavy rains. and even though I use all kinds of things to help, my hands too feel like I have been using concerte breakers for 10 hours solid. Wish I could control where the dogs are going to dig! That would help! Hee hee hee!
They did soak the bed the night before, else there probably would have been dug only 5 or 6 holes! If they hadn't I'm sure each of us would have gotten up off our knees and said I'm outta here! I'll say one thing for clay, once you manage to get your plants in, and if the drainage is reasonable, stuff really grows.
BTW the botanical garden plans on mechanically tilling that particular bed next week and incorporating mountains of compost. The bed is approximately 50 x 65. It should be a much better experience next year. I've never seen hardpan plowed. I hope I'm out there when they do it. I know they are bringing in heavy equipment.
Yes, dear Snap, it's quite true that clay is nutrient dense. Once I got that compost established I found that everything grows bigger than suppliers say, sometimes 50% bigger. I also found that, with enough compost, the hardpan breaks down. Either that, or I've added so much compost that the soil level in my yard has gotten higher. Hardpan used to be about 4 inches down. Now I can dig a foot or more and not find any.
Thank goodness!
I have more trouble getting the moisture level right with Mopheads. Some parts of my beds are too wet for them, other parts are too dry. With the Oakleafs, I seem to be having more problems with the correct light exposure than moisture levels, although one of my Oakleafs needs to be moved as it is always parched bone dry, even in a fairly shady spot.
DonnaM - If you can dig a foot ot more without finding any more hard pan then you've really , truely accomplished something I'm impressed.
stormyla , as someone who battles bone dry blow sand I can say that oakleafs prefer that to soggy soil conditions. But the thing with sand is that when it does get moisture, the moisture doesn't runoff as fast as it would on hard baked ordinary garden soil. It gets into the sand and down to the roots in short order. I'll bet the parched bone dry you deal with is not the same I deal with. I can still get a shovel in the ground without a lot of effort. In your case I'm guessing that your dry soil is also probably quite hard. Roots might have a harder time moving through the soil.
Yes, Snapple, that particular part of the bed has very hard soil, despite many amendment attempts. I've only been working on it for four years. Maybe I'll see improvement in the next 2 to 3 years. Afterall, it took two years to see a worm here. Now they are almost everywhere.