Oakleaf hydrangea is one plant that you truly can enjoy all year long. I know a lot of gardeners say that about other trees and shrubs, but you have to be a hardcore gardening addict to take pleasure in the bare outline of a tree in winter. With oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) , it's absolutely true that the flowers and leaves of this American native (bonus) are spectacular in every season.
Its long upright flower clusters are like towers, with white blossoms in spring and summer turning a soft shade of rose and tan in the fall. The leaves are large, green and shaped like an oak's, and they have a luminous light underside. In fall, the leaves turn reddish purple, sometimes orange, and the bark is a light cinnamon-y color.
Oakleafs like lots of room, for they grow quickly grow up and out. I've got some that are three years old - growing in dappled sun and shade - and they're massive already. I love just looking at them, imagining them growing wild and spectacularly out in a forest somewhere. Last fall I picked some of the individual flowers, called sepals, dried them, pressed them and made my own note cards. They're perfect for drying.
The one in this photo anchors a corner of my garden that's visible from my patio and my next door neighbor's back yard. It's planted where the flagstone path converges, near a fountain, so when we sit with friends back by the fountain, the oakleaf hydrangea is a big part of that experience. Invariably, friends take one look at it and say, "Wow! What's that?"
If you needed to see up close the beauty of our native flora, be sure to check out the oakleaf hydrangea. At first you'll think it can't possibly be a hydrangea, and it's true, it looks nothing like the Hydrangea macrophylla mopheads of our childhoods. But it's the real deal, an amazing crowd-pleaser.
