Please ID this for me

This hydrangea was here when we moved here. It is planted on the east side where it greets the sun everyday, so it would follow that it gets afternoon shade. It started out blooming lime green and whitish, then the blooms turned blue as shown in the collage, then they turned back a darker green with tinges of purple. I did not cut the blooms until today because I wanted to see what they would do. As I got down into the bush, there were small new blooms, and it is October 10th.

I put some in a cornucopia in wet florists foam, and put others into a vase. There must be two bushel baskets of blooms out on the driveway, waiting to be thrown away or hung up and dried.

Can someone tell me how to dry them?

This thing blooms so profusely and is so gorgeous I'd like to propagate it. Maybe someone could advise me about that too. I just have gotten interested in hydrangeas because I plan to put white ones in a shade garden .

Thanks, for your help.

Linny

It's certainly beautiful but if you're looking for a name it might be difficult or impossible. So many are sold without names and many people don't keep names even when the label has them.

They are best propagated in June and July by using stems that haven't flowered. Take six inch cuttings, plant three per pot, and remove leaves except for the top two. Plant in a soil-less mix and put them in pots in dappled shade. They should root by October (you'll spot new leaves at the top) and you can bury the pots for the winter and plant them in spring.

To dry the heads just use rubber bands to group them into loose bunches and hang them upside down (a clothes line works) in a basement or a cool airy spot for as long as it takes to get them dry - generally a month or more. If the colors ever fade you can spray paint them.

Good luck!

Thank you, pirl. I'm printing out your answer and putting it in my plant notebook, so I won't forget by June.

Linny

You're quite welcome.

We hydrangea lovers should post a new thread in June to encourage more people to take cuttings. It's easy and such fun to share. I've given away hundreds of rooted cuttings and still have many more but now they're large and too hard to ship so I'll just plant them.