Name: Hydrangea arborescens Invincibelle Spirit II, Blush and other pink varieties of our native, smooth hydrangea.

Type of Plant: A deciduous shrub that grows between three and four feet tall and wide.

Why I Love/Hate this plant: A graceful plant that makes lovely flowers for cutting. Smooth Hydrangea varieties that flowers on new growth, so it doesn’t matter what the winter weather is or when and how it gets pruned. Pink flowers! Grows best in sun to part-shade.

A Word to the Wise: Watch for Hydrangea leaftier in June and cut off any top leaves that are glued together by this larvae. It’s pointless to spray since the leaftier is protected inside the packet of leaves. Cut them off and either put them in the garbage, burn them, or bury them.

Fertilize with an organic fertilizer every spring and top-dress around the plant with compost or composted manure before mulching. For the strongest stems, don’t cut down much more than a foot in the spring.

Unlike the blue flowering hydrangeas, this one does well in full to part-sun.

As the flowers start to brown and fade, clip them off just below the bloom…this plant will often make new flowers when deadheaded in this manner.