July 17, 2020

Hydrangea season is in full swing on Cape Cod. The Hydrangea Festival is underway, and this season is proving to be a pretty good year for Hydrangea macrophylla. Here at Heritage Museums & Gardens, the plants are in full flower, and many cultivars survived the winter and are flowering. Some of the more tender plants aren’t in flower, but there are very few seasons when all flower well. In general, this is a very good year for hydrangeas.

The Hydrangea Gardens at Heritage include a garden developed in partnership with the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society as well as the North American Hydrangea Test Garden. The society’s garden is mainly a historic collection filled with older cultivars, many of which are hard to find. The test Garden is filled with improved cultivars of the species Hydrangea macrophylla, Hydrangea paniculata, Hydrangea arborescens and Hydrangea quercifolia. The new cultivars of Hydrangea macrophylla, plants such as “Twist-N-Shout” and “Bloom Struck,” are all “rebloomers” or remontant. These plants have the ability to flower on current season’s growth, meaning they can suffer a killing freeze in the fall (or spring) and still flower the next season.