(hii-drain' gee-ah ma-crow-phil' ah)
Common name: Florist's Hydrangea, Snowball Plant
Family: Saxifragaceae, Saxifrage
Height x width: 1'x1-2' indoors in pots, 3-5' x 3-5' outdoors in zones 6-9
Foliage: large 4-8" long and 3-6" wide, broadly ovate, coarsely toothed, often shiny
Flowers: large clusters (corymbs, umbels) terminal and axillary, 6-9" wide flat ("Lacecap" type) or mound ("Mophead" or "Snowball" or "Hortensia" type--the more traditional form and more commonly seen); generally blue, pink, red, white, purplish sepals--flowers themselves are greenish, small and insignificant; a few sterile flowers with many fertile flowers, Lacecap types have a row of sterile flowers around a cluster of fertile ones; on woody stems
Light: bright
Temperature: cool indoors, tolerates heat in shade in warm climates outdoors
Watering: keep well watered, don't allow to dry
Humidity: average
Soil: well-drained
Pests and Problems: aphids, spider mites, scales; leaf scorch (brown edges) from dry air or drafts, or root damage from high salts and dry soil
Growth habit, uses: flowering potted plant; flowering shrub in zones 6-9
Other interest: native to Japan, China and Southeast Asia; an old-fashioned plant popular in Victorian times;
Other culture: plants bloom on two-year wood which should be considered in pruning; after bloom maintain as a shrub, placing outdoors with pot sunk in ground in summer; bring indoors when leaves fall and keep cool but above freezing; gradually bring into warmth in late winter for summer bloom; forced commercially primarily for Easter through Mother's Day; flower buds develop at 60-65ºF after 6 weeks of total darkness at 40-45ºF, or after overwintering outdoors where hardy; on pink-blue varieties, blue flowers develop with acidic soil pH (5.0, as from aluminum sulphate), pink flowers from alkaline soil pH (6.5, as from lime).
Propagation: stem or tip cuttings
Cultivars:
There is some taxonomic disagreement whether some Lacecap types are
actually in serrata or whether this is a subspecies of macrophylla;
other Lacecap types are in macrophylla. Those listed below
are only a few of the most representative, worthy and available of the
100 or so in commerce.
| Cultivar | flower color, size | other |
| 'Bluebird' | blue, lacecap | |
| 'Blue Wave' | blue, lacecap | |
| 'Bottstein' | red-rose, medium | short |
| 'Fire Light' ('Leuchtfeuer') | dark pink, large | tall |
| 'Jennifer' | red, small | medium height |
| 'Kuhnert' | light blue, medium | medium height |
| 'Lanarth White' | white, lacecap | |
| 'Lilacina' | pink to blue, lacecap | |
| 'Masja' | red-pink, large | tall |
| 'Mathilda Gutches' | blue, medium | medium tall, European |
| 'Merritt Supreme' | medium pink, large | short, popular commercially |
| 'Nikko Blue' | pink to bright blue | most popular and available |
| 'Pink Beauty' | pink | |
| 'Pink Lacecap' | pink, lacecap | |
| 'Rose Supreme' | light pink, very large | very tall, popular |
| 'Sara' | light pink | |
| 'Sister Therese' | white, large | short |
| 'Tricolor' | pink to blue | leaves mottled cream, yellow |
| 'Veitchii' | white fading pink | leaves dark green |
| 'White Wave' | pink/blue, white outer |
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