NEW FEATURE "HYDRANGEA GLOSSARY"
Click below to download the new Hydrangea Glossary
Click below to download the new Hydrangea Glossary
| hydrangea_glossary.pdf |
Welcome
Welcome to the Alabama Hydrangea Society. Please browse our site and join us for any of our upcoming events.
Guests are always welcome.
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As a matter of fact:
Did you know that the Oakleaf Hydrangea is the Official State Wildflower of Alabama?
Hydrangea quercifolia Bartr.
====================================================================
Happy New Year, Alabama Hydrangea Society members!
Our next meeting is Wednesday, January 22 at 1:00 p.m. at the Aldridge Gardens Education Building. Visitors are always welcome, so please come and bring a friend.
Did Santa (or perhaps your insurance agent) bring you a 2025 calendar? Well, find it and mark these dates for our 2025 Alabama Hydrangea Society meeting dates. This schedule is similar to the schedule we used in 2024, and doesn’t strictly correspond to the meeting dates called for in our bylaws. We tweak the dates slightly to accommodate summer camps which use the Education Building and to avoid school spring break. The added benefit of these modified dates is that they correspond to the native azaleas blooming at Aldridge Gardens in early April and the hydrangeas blooming in late May. Please note that our 2025 meetings are:
Wednesday, Jan. 22
Wednesday, April 2
Wednesday, May 21
Wednesday, Aug. 27
Wednesday, Oct. 22
Last spring I planted 23 panicle hydrangeas in my front yard and, although they all bloomed, most of the blooms flopped over
badly. I began to research “hydrangea flop” and found some interesting solutions which I will share with you in our January 22 program. The program is called “How to Avoid the Flops.” Late winter is the time to prune your panicle and smooth hydrangeas, but you might want to wait until you hear this program and adjust your pruning method if you also suffer from hydrangea flop.
We had a good response at our October meeting with members bringing their 2025 dues. If you missed the meeting, please send your $15 membership ($25 for a couple) payable to Alabama Hydrangea Society, c/o Susan Pretnar, 2149 Bailey Brook Dr., Birmingham, AL 35244. Can’t remember if you’ve paid your dues? You can email me back and I’ll look it up.
In other news… Aldridge Gardens is bringing in Julia Adams, the horticulturist for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ Japanese Garden, to teach a Japanese maple pruning workshop on Saturday, January 25 from 11-12:30. Sign up on the AG website’s Events Calendar (once this new class gets posted sometime next week).
Until then…
Keep Growing,
David Doggett, AHS president
======================
Notes from a prior introduction
Karen and Kathy Webb have discovered and passed along recently several interesting YouTube videos concerning hydrangeas. Remember that advice from northern gardeners may not be exactly applicable to us southern gardeners. With that in mind, here are some videos that you might enjoy:
Michael Dirr’s June 2022 nursery tour for the American Hydrangea Society (11 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuDluaLoqLA
Michael Dirr’s talk to the 2022 American Hydrangea Society on his breeding efforts (starts at the 17:30 mark, runs for 50 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iElniW2jak
Lorraine Ballato’s hydrangea blogs (she’s based in Connecticut)
https://www.lorraineballato.com/
Oakleaf and bigleaf hydrangeas can be pruned if necessary up until about mid-July to be safe. Also, I’ll always remember what Michael Dirr wrote: “Nothing in the Dirr garden gets fertilized after August 1st.”
===========================================================================================================
Check out the New Additions to our website: Hydrangea Winter Pruning and Propagation, and an updated Hydrangea Care Calendar. Also see the first Hydrangea Pruning help sheet.
Thanks to David Doggett !!!
==============================================================
Our Gardens - Pictures of how we get out hands dirty.
If you like hydrangeas, visitors and members alike will enjoy this trip into our yards and gardens. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage, sit back and see the results of hours of great time spent in our gardens. Click HERE
====================================================================
MEMBER TOURS
In May and June of 2017, members of the Alabama Hydrangea Society visited two magnificent gardens: Jim Scott's waterfront grounds on nearby Logan Martin lake, and Wendy White's Hydrangea extraordinaire in the Birmingham area. Enjoy this Power Point presentation of the pictures from both tours. We thank both Jim and Wendy for their great hospitality.
Guests are always welcome.
====================================================================
As a matter of fact:
Did you know that the Oakleaf Hydrangea is the Official State Wildflower of Alabama?
Hydrangea quercifolia Bartr.
====================================================================
Happy New Year, Alabama Hydrangea Society members!
Our next meeting is Wednesday, January 22 at 1:00 p.m. at the Aldridge Gardens Education Building. Visitors are always welcome, so please come and bring a friend.
Did Santa (or perhaps your insurance agent) bring you a 2025 calendar? Well, find it and mark these dates for our 2025 Alabama Hydrangea Society meeting dates. This schedule is similar to the schedule we used in 2024, and doesn’t strictly correspond to the meeting dates called for in our bylaws. We tweak the dates slightly to accommodate summer camps which use the Education Building and to avoid school spring break. The added benefit of these modified dates is that they correspond to the native azaleas blooming at Aldridge Gardens in early April and the hydrangeas blooming in late May. Please note that our 2025 meetings are:
Wednesday, Jan. 22
Wednesday, April 2
Wednesday, May 21
Wednesday, Aug. 27
Wednesday, Oct. 22
Last spring I planted 23 panicle hydrangeas in my front yard and, although they all bloomed, most of the blooms flopped over
badly. I began to research “hydrangea flop” and found some interesting solutions which I will share with you in our January 22 program. The program is called “How to Avoid the Flops.” Late winter is the time to prune your panicle and smooth hydrangeas, but you might want to wait until you hear this program and adjust your pruning method if you also suffer from hydrangea flop.
We had a good response at our October meeting with members bringing their 2025 dues. If you missed the meeting, please send your $15 membership ($25 for a couple) payable to Alabama Hydrangea Society, c/o Susan Pretnar, 2149 Bailey Brook Dr., Birmingham, AL 35244. Can’t remember if you’ve paid your dues? You can email me back and I’ll look it up.
In other news… Aldridge Gardens is bringing in Julia Adams, the horticulturist for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens’ Japanese Garden, to teach a Japanese maple pruning workshop on Saturday, January 25 from 11-12:30. Sign up on the AG website’s Events Calendar (once this new class gets posted sometime next week).
Until then…
Keep Growing,
David Doggett, AHS president
======================
Notes from a prior introduction
Karen and Kathy Webb have discovered and passed along recently several interesting YouTube videos concerning hydrangeas. Remember that advice from northern gardeners may not be exactly applicable to us southern gardeners. With that in mind, here are some videos that you might enjoy:
Michael Dirr’s June 2022 nursery tour for the American Hydrangea Society (11 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuDluaLoqLA
Michael Dirr’s talk to the 2022 American Hydrangea Society on his breeding efforts (starts at the 17:30 mark, runs for 50 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iElniW2jak
Lorraine Ballato’s hydrangea blogs (she’s based in Connecticut)
https://www.lorraineballato.com/
Oakleaf and bigleaf hydrangeas can be pruned if necessary up until about mid-July to be safe. Also, I’ll always remember what Michael Dirr wrote: “Nothing in the Dirr garden gets fertilized after August 1st.”
===========================================================================================================
Check out the New Additions to our website: Hydrangea Winter Pruning and Propagation, and an updated Hydrangea Care Calendar. Also see the first Hydrangea Pruning help sheet.
Thanks to David Doggett !!!
==============================================================
Our Gardens - Pictures of how we get out hands dirty.
If you like hydrangeas, visitors and members alike will enjoy this trip into our yards and gardens. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage, sit back and see the results of hours of great time spent in our gardens. Click HERE
====================================================================
MEMBER TOURS
In May and June of 2017, members of the Alabama Hydrangea Society visited two magnificent gardens: Jim Scott's waterfront grounds on nearby Logan Martin lake, and Wendy White's Hydrangea extraordinaire in the Birmingham area. Enjoy this Power Point presentation of the pictures from both tours. We thank both Jim and Wendy for their great hospitality.
| ahs_tours_2017.pptx |
