Hortense Pink Lady: description and reviews

If you think that in the landscape of your garden lacks an effective and at the same time a gentle accent, decorate it with a magnificent shrub - hydrangea panicle Pink Lady. Planting and care of the plant are simple even for beginners in floriculture, while beautiful flowers will change beyond recognition any site.

This is one of the most popular varieties of panicle hydrangea, which has long and successfully grown in its sites gardeners in Russia. Hydrangea panicle Pink lady was bred by the famous Dutch breeder Peter Zweinenburg. Today we will acquaint you with the peculiarities of this shrub, the secrets of agricultural technology. We hope that this information will be useful for beginning florists.

Hortensia paniculate Pink lady: a description of the variety

Specialists consider this variety to be one of the most attractive of the numerous family. The adult bush grows up to two meters in height. Its sprawling crown is distinguished by a lush, expanding, fan-shaped form. Long branches of hydrangea Pink lady cover large leaves with finely toothed edges.

Sprouts straight, dyed brown. By the fall, they acquire a reddish hue. Dense white flowers are connected, they form inflorescences of a cone-shaped elongated form up to thirty centimeters long. Over time, white flowers acquire a gentle pink color. They produce a pleasant sweetish flavor.

The indisputable advantage of this variety is a long flowering beginning from the second half of July and continuing until the first frosts.

Features of agricultural technology

Hortense Pink Lady, whose photo you can see below, is unpretentious and even tolerates short-term water stagnation. Easily adaptable to any type of soil, but at the same time does not tolerate excessive lime content. The most suitable are acid types of soils.

Prefer the soil mixture consisting of humus, leaf land, sand and peat in a ratio of 2: 2: 1: 1. Experienced gardeners sometimes artificially acidify the soil, bringing it to an ideal state.

The beauty of the hydrangea bush Pink lady, like most perennials, largely depends on the planting material purchased by the gardener. When buying a plant, the weak seedlings must be alerted: afterwards they are unlikely to be able to demonstrate all the beauty of this variety.

Planting time

We have already talked about how unpretentious this wonderful plant is - hydrangea Pink Lady. Planting and caring for it will require the owner of minimal effort. The best time for planting a plant is spring, although you can do this work in the fall, however, in this case, some additional measures will be required, which we will discuss below.

Planting a hydrangea Pink Lady in the spring, you give the bush an extra chance to adapt more quickly in the summer, to settle down in typical climatic conditions for your region. If you decide to plant hydrangeas in autumn, then the seedling should be sheltered for the winter. This is done without fail, regardless of the frost resistance of the plant.

Choose a place

For Hydrangea Pink Lady it is very important to choose the right site for planting a suitable site where the plant will feel quite comfortable and at the same time successfully fit into the landscape. For this sort of hydrangea, a paniculate is most suitable for solar areas, but well protected from the wind. Although Hydrangea Pink Lady tolerates and partial shade, in this case she does not reveal all her beauty: the flowers lose their refined pink shade. In addition, the flowering activity decreases.

The soil

This sort of hydrangea is not very fond of sandy soil, which must be taken into account when choosing a place for planting. Drainage properties of the soil are important for this plant, but they should not be clearly expressed. This is due to the fact that this sort of hydrangea is a water-loving plant, it will suffer a short-term excess of moisture, but a drought can ruin its root system.

Preparation for planting

So, the place is chosen, now it is necessary to properly dig a landing pit and prepare it appropriately for planting. Since this shrub is quite large, its proper development and abundant flowering should be taken care of while it is still small.

The pit is prepared for it rather spacious, its size should be at least 50x50 cm, but not more than 80x80 cm. It depends on the size of the seedling and its root system. The depth of the pit must be at least fifty centimeters. Do not be confused by the rather impressive size of the landing pit: do not forget that it should be filled with fertilizers.

Now fill it with two or three buckets of water at night, so that the moisture completely soaked the soil.

Landing in open ground

In the morning fill the pit with soil mixture and add organic and mineral fertilizers: superphosphate - 65 g, potassium sulfate - 25 g, urea - 25 g. It is desirable to add pine or pine needles to this mix, it will additionally acidify the soil. Try not to let lime get into the mixture.

The pit is filled with the soil mixture almost to the top, and in this condition it is ready for planting.

Preparation of seedlings

Needs pruning roots before planting Hydrangea Pink Lady. The description, which can be found in publications on floriculture, recommends cutting off annual shoots, leaving only 3-5 kidneys on them.

Care

Hydrangea Pink lady needs soil loosening, weeding, fertilizing with fertilizers and frequent, abundant watering, without which you will not wait for active flowering. This sort of hydrangea is frost-resistant, so it is not required to hide it for winter (except for planting the seedlings in autumn).

However, if in your region winter is expected without snow and with very severe frosts, then you can not do without shelter. The length of shoots of this hydrangea is corrected annually, and the soil is periodically mulched using pine needles, peat or sawdust. This will keep moisture under the bush.

Frequent watering of the soil near the bush often causes the appearance of a crust on it. In this case it is necessary to conduct regular loosening, treating the soil around the bush in a radius of about 70 cm, and at the same time removing the weeds.

A feature of this hydrangea is that under a fairly high ground part, a root system is hidden, which grows horizontally. For this reason, the plant especially needs moisture. Loosen the soil very carefully, so as not to damage the rhizomes.

Watering

The soil around the bush should always be moist. This is especially important in dry and hot days. Drying of the soil can not be tolerated. Every day hydrangeas are watered quite abundantly - up to thirty liters per square meter. In the rainy summer, watering is reduced. In the water for irrigation should be added potassium permanganate (manganese).

Top dressing

To achieve active and long flowering, the plant needs to be fed with various fertilizers. The plant is responsive to organic fertilizers. For example, slurry operates very efficiently, but the main thing is to observe the measure, otherwise the inflorescences will begin to break under their own weight.

Good results are given by a complex of mineral fertilizers, if used correctly - a solution (25 pellets per ten liters of water) is poured under the bush in the spring.

A turbid blossom hydrangea will respond to top dressing with the following composition: urea (25 g), superphosphate (35 g) and potassium sulphate (35 g) per ten liters of water.

Today in specialized stores you can purchase a special fertilizer for hydrangeas, which is as balanced as possible. Feed the plant four times a year: from early spring to late summer or early autumn.

The first fertilizing is carried out during the sap movement in the plant. For this, organic fertilizers are used, which give a charge for the active growth of the inflorescences. The second feeding should be done during the formation and growth of buds. At this time, compounds with urea, potassium and superphosphate are used. In the middle of summer a third part of the fertilizer is introduced, which contributes to long flowering. In this case, watering with the use of a mineral complex is necessary. The last top dressing is carried out in the period of preparation for winter. It should not use nitrogen. It is better to use a ready fertilizer for hydrangeas during this period.

Trimming

Since the inflorescences are formed only on new shoots of hydrangea, the plant needs the forces for their formation. Therefore, the old stems are cut off every year. Only in this case you will receive an abundantly flowering beautiful bush covered with large inflorescences.

It is advisable to spend pruning in the spring before the beginning of sap movement, before the beginning of active vital activity.

Pink lady in landscape design

Specialists in landscape design like and actively use this sort of hydrangeas for landscaping suburban areas and gardens. This plant has been highly appreciated thanks to its abundant flowering for several months, frost resistance, unpretentiousness in the care.

It should be borne in mind that this shrub grows to two meters in width, so it is necessary to leave a border zone between the plants in the neighborhood. Pink lady is suitable for any style of design: looks great in single landings, no less interesting in group compositions. Effectively looks this beauty in the neighborhood with coniferous plants. Its inflorescence harmoniously combines with many evergreen trees.

The only thing that can not be forgotten in a group planting: pick up plants that are close to their requirements for the sun, moisture and soil quality.

Hortense Pink Lady: reviews of gardeners

Most gardeners consider it a great success to choose hydrangeas for planting their plot. Plants do not require the owner of special efforts in care, not particularly fastidious to the composition of the soil and almost all the season enjoys abundant flowering. There are no serious shortcomings in this variety, except for the need for shelter for the winter in the northern regions.