Annabelle Hydrangeas

I have looked and looked for Annabelle Hydrangeas this spring.  Over and over again I hear, “we used to carry it, not sure why we are not getting it from our supplier this year.” I am trying to be patient and have left my name and phone number at every plant nursery in my area. If I ever succeed at trading money for these beauties, I plan to plant them in front of my established arborvitae wall (see second image).   This is the inspiration photo for what I want to do with them:

From Proven Winners: https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/hydrangea/incrediball-smooth-hydrangea-hydrangea-arborescens

Here is where I want to put them:

As you can see I have my mulch waiting. I also have a big ol’ pile of dirt waiting as well to form the flower bed after I dig it out some.

So while I wait I will tell you what I have learned about these beautiful plants.  I learned a lot from the fairfax county gardening site. In particular this site:  http://www.fairfaxgardening.org/wp-content/webdocs/pdf/AnnabelleHydrangea.pdf

To summarize, the Annabelle Hydrangea was found in the wild in 1910,  by Harriett Kirkpatrick of Anna, Illinois who summoned her sister-in-law to see this beautiful variety of hydrangea with the big snowball shaped flower heads.  They bagged it and planted it and shared it until it caught the attention of a horticulturalist who turned it into the commercial success it is…ahem…when you can find it at your nursery.

From a large variety of sites I learned that because it is native it is fairly resistant to bugs and disease. The one drawback is the heads are large and thus heavy so after a rain they tend to sprawl out, or lie down.  To mitigate this I plan to purchase several round tomato cages like this from Lowes:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_695297-82704-89720L_1z0wg9u__?productId=999909919&pl=1

They are $3.99 each, and from what I hear worth the investment.  Just put them in when planting and the hydrangea will soon bury it within.  And maybe, just maybe, if I am lucky and give it some time I will also bury a stone bench in the design too like the one below.

http://67.media.tumblr.com/be3fa2caca2cd13b7b77e9f234f24ccd/tumblr_nra4f7tpFD1s7lffto1_250.jpg

And one more inspiration photo

Photo by Katia Goffin Gardens – Discover traditional landscape design ideas