PETITTI Oakleaf Hydrangea Spotlight | How to Grow & Care For Hydrangea quercifolia

The most shade-tolerant of all hydrangeas, Oakleaf varieties are reliable, U.S.-native bloomers that thrive here in Northeast Ohio. In this video, Noelle explains how to successfully grow Hydrangea quercifolia, including tips for pruning, watering, and fertilizing. She also shares advice for winter protection and highlights some of the beautiful varieties we grow!

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Hi everybody. This is Noel from Petitita Garden Centers and we’re here at Oakwood Village and we are going to do a spotlight on oak leaf hydrangeas. Now, uh keep in mind this is one of the six hydrangeanger families that we typically grow. There are so many different species of hydrangeas. Um but oak leaf is one of our favorites and I’ll tell you why in just a few. But just so you know, uh the Latin name of this plant is hydrangeanger quapoglia and quirkus is the Latin name for oak. So there you go. Querophogia oak leaf. Okay. So that’s what you see when you look at these hydrangeas. And that’s one of their best attributes of course are their very large bold looking loed oak leaf like foliage. And um I’ll tell you this plant has awesome fall color too. But before I get too far ahead of myself, I’ll go back to what we need to do to succeed growing these hydrangeanger. Now I should tell you that these hydrangeanger are native to the US, actually the southeastern US. Okay. Um, so they do grow very well in our soils, different soil conditions, they do a very very good job in um and and they they’re one of the few hydrangeanger that we grow that is native to the US. Okay. The other one is going to be smooth hydrangeanger. So with oakleaf hydrangeanger, what do you need to know to be successful? The first thing is the sun conditions. And I’m going to tell you, this plant is best in part shade like most of the hydrangeanger species that we talk about, okay? It really likes that part shade condition, four to six hours of direct sunlight. And if you can find an eastern exposure where it gets morning sun and then gets shaded in the evening, that is ideal for this hydrangeanger. This hydrangeanger can also take lighting up to full sun, but the caveat here is it’s got to stay evenly moist in the soil because boy does this hydrangeanger burn. And it is one of the hydrangeas that can get leaf scorched pretty easily even with overhead watering. And the sun comes through and refracts through the water droplets. So, this plant does burn fairly easy. So, again, your best place is going to be part shade. This hydrangeanger also is excellent in deeper shady conditions, too. So, I’m going to tell you, part shade is ideal, but if you have a shade condition where you have four hours or less of direct sunlight, it does a pretty good job and can still flower for you. Sure, the flowers might not be as abundant in the shade and your foliage fall color might not be as um spectacular in the shade, but they’ll still do a nice job for you in a shadier part of the garden. Okay, so sun, all different kind of conditions, just depends on what you would like to do with them. Part shades the best. Next thing is soil. So in uh southeastern United States where they grow tends to be in moist wooded areas uh by river banks and streams. So again that moisture does play a part. So you do want evenly moist soil on average well drained. Okay. Once they’re established, they can take a little bit of drought, but like all hydrangeas, you will see them wilt pretty quickly when they get into too hot, too dry conditions, and it really has to do with hydranger root systems. They tend to be a little bit more shallow. And so that’s why we always recommend putting that 1 to 2 in layer of summer mulch around the plant material to of course shade the root system, keep the moisture in the soil. That’s always going to benefit all hydrangeas. Okay? So make sure you do that. This other part of this is watering now. And of course, like most hydrangeas, they like soil moisture, not overly wet because they really don’t want to sit in water and they don’t want to be too dry. So again, that sort of medium moisture is really good for them. And of course, when you first plant a plant, we always talk about providing them one inch of water, one time per week, slow, deep watering, and that’s when you don’t have any rainfall. If you have a half inch of rainfall, all you have to do is supplement the other half inch for that week. But you want to make sure that you’re doing that slow, deep watering, let’s say with a soaker hose or dripper irrigation. And even if you want to put the garden hose on a trickle and just place it at the base of the plant and let it run for, let’s say, uh, an hour or so, that is a slow, deep watering. And guess what? the root system of that plant is going to move deeper into the soil trying to follow that water and that is always going to be great for any type of plant material that you’re trying to establish. Okay. Uh so do remember that as far as the moisture is concerned fertilizer. These are deciduous shrubs. They’re sort of rounded, obviously broadledded, um, very, very nice, but they’ll lose those leaves in late fall. And so we tend to plant, uh, and fertilize our deciduous shrubs with plant tone and iron tone. And we will use plant tone and iron tone in the spring when you start to see that flush of new growth come out and also midsummer. Okay. So, for us in Northeast Ohio, you know, anytime between mid July, um, early August, that’s going to be a great time for that midsummer feeding when things are kind of looking a little bit peaked. They’re they’re just trying to deal with uh the summer heat and humidity and all those types of things, too. So, keep that in mind. Plant tone and iron tone are great for these hydrangeanger. And you don’t have to worry about pH with these hydrangeas. So, I should mention that, too. Um, we tend to just use a balanced fertilizer like plant tone. Um, and it’s not acidic. And it’s because all of your panacle hydrangeanger are going to produce this beautiful creamy white panacle flower. Some might be longer, shorter, stockier, what have you. But this flower will always start that kind of creamy white color, maybe with a little touch of lime green here and there when they’re nice and um young. And then as they develop, you will see them start to produce those blush pink colors, maybe even redder tones as they move and kind of um mature, if you will, into the fall. But that is not anything that has to do with soil pH like your macrofila hydrangeanger. So just be aware of that. Plantone iron tone are great for them. Okay. Next thing is maintenance. And I’m going to say that these hydrangeanger are going to be medium maintenance. And the reason being is it’s because of their pruning, their winter protection, and also their protection from deer browsing. Okay. So let’s talk about pruning. The oakleaf hydrangeanger are very similar to macrofila or mophead type hydrangeas as far as pruning is concerned. The reason being is that these plants produce buds and blooms on old wood. Okay. So, if you can protect the hydrangeas over the winter with an antid-descant spray that you apply, let’s say late fall, the foliage has come off, you go ahead and apply that anti-desant spray to the stems, take your piece of burlap, wrap the entire plant, and make sure that you’re protecting those stems. that you are always going to have a better chance of having good bud growth and better flowering the next growing season. Okay? In that there is a certain amount of winter dieback. It depends in our area and we’re in zone six. There’s a certain amount of winter dieback that oakleaf hydrangeas and macrofila hydrangeas do experience and it has to do with that winter desiccation. Cold dry winters are just not friendly to these plants at all. So what we say with the macrofila hydrangeanger and also with the oakleaf hydrangeanger is wait until the plant just starts to flush out new growth and you are going to remove the 3Ds down to the uppermost growth. The 3Ds as I’ve mentioned many times before is diseased, damaged and dead areas on that plant. And again winter dieback happens. So maybe you have winter dieback on the top few inches of your oakleaf hydrangeanger. Then you can go ahead and just prune down to remove it to that uppermost green growth that is pushing out. Shape that plant the way that you want and you’re ready to go. Clean out any of those dried dead stems out of the center of the plant and that plant is ready to go for pruning. the rest of the season, let the plant do its thing. And then when we get into, let’s say, July, the plant has kind of gone through its bloom cycle. If you do want to prune it back to control some of the height and the size of this plant, that’s when you do it. So July is going to be that month that you can go ahead and prune well into the plant just to reduce some of the size and the height if you wish. For the most part, oakleaf hydrangeanger are going to be anywhere from, let’s say, 2 foot tall all the way to 8 foot tall. Okay? It depends on the variety. So definitely read your tags, make sure you know what size you’re getting. But these plants do not need a lot of pruning and that’s kind of with the macrofilo hydrangeanger as well. They do really really nicely if you can protect them from from uh winter you know issues. So winter protection is really really good for them just like the macrofilas and also just lighter pruning just to remove anything that’s dead diseased or damaged on that plant. Okay. So that’s maintenance. Other than that, I wanted to tell you again, no hydrangeanger are impervious from deer browsing and especially early season when these plants do start to push out, you can get quite a bit of damage. Okay? So, just be aware of that. Make sure that um if you’re successful with like something like netting for a barrier, that’s always great on oakleaf hydrangeas. Go ahead and toss the netting over the top of them. Let them fill out underneath. that’s always a good protective um you know cover or repellent. So any repellent that you’re successful with, we often recommend plant skid. That’s our number one repellent for us. All organic does very very well uh for the oakleaf hydrangeanger. So that’s something to consider too. Okay. So make sure you stay up on your repellents um and mark your calendar when you’re spraying. Okay. attributes. As far as these hydrangeas are concerned, as I mentioned, they’re the most shade tolerant of all the hydrangeas. Still able to perform in fairly deep shade. So, that’s a great thing. If you were to Google favorite 10 landscape plants in Northeast Ohio, you would see the oakleaf hydrangeanger pop up because it has such a beautiful texture and broad rounded habit to it. Again, some of them can be very short uh compact forms. Some of them can be much larger and hedge forms. It just kind of depends on the purpose that you want to use them in the landscape. But boy, that foliage texture is just outstanding. And you really don’t find it on a lot of native plant material around here. A lot of a lot of the plant material that has really interesting foliage is going to be maybe from Asia or Europe, that type of thing. Okay. Flowering is absolutely gorgeous. Again, you can get small or large panacles. Some of these oakleaf hydrangeanger have just as large panacles as some of our true paniculad panacle hydrangeanger do. So they can be very large, very floriferous and can attract pollinators as well. So you might see a panacle like this one on Jetream that again has the sterile flowers and then the lacy true flowers on the inside. And of course uh the pollinators are going to absolutely love that. You might find some of your oakleaf hydrangeanger have a very full panacle of sterile flowers and the pollinators aren’t going to really enjoy that one as much because there aren’t any true flowers on it. But I’m going to tell you those flowers, both kinds are wonderful to use as a cut uh and dried flower. So please, by all means, you can cut these panacles. These panacles again because they’re so similar to the macrofila type. If you’re going to cut a panacle for flower arranging or drying flowers, you would really again take the panacle and count down two leaf nodes again and cut above that second leaf node. So, you would really only have a short stem that you can arrange by when you’re deadheading these because again, we don’t want you to move into the plant too far and disrupt any type of bud uh development that’s going to be on those stems. You really don’t have to worry about that until maybe August. And that’s again when they start developing those buds again. But we want you to kind of keep the dead heading to short stems just so you don’t interrupt anything. Okay. foliage. This is a phenomenal fall color foliage plant. And the the leaves will turn any shade, but usually you’ll see different shades of purple and red, some bronze, some burgundy. Um, so that’s typically the shades that you see. Jetream in front of me has a little bit of orangey and red, too. So again, you’re getting a lot of different color um you know through the foliage, especially in the fall. I will also mention with these plants um they are very heat and humidity tolerant, but again it has a lot to do with uh that native habit and being used to our environment here in the United States. And I think um again being native to the southeastern United States, no problem. heat and humidity is kind of their thing, but again, keeping that even moisture in the soil is going to be key there as well to keeping them ha healthy. I did want to tell you, and you might see it from the video here, that there are some spots on these leaves. And hydrangeas, you do want to keep an eye out and scout for different issues. Leaf spot is not uncommon on these hydrangeas. And again, it’s a lot of different um factors that go into the hydrangeas developing leaf spot. Sometimes it has to do with just overhead watering, which we do have at the at this nursery and most of our nurseries that it’s going to get some overhead sprinkler watering. And of course, if it’s sunny out, they can get sunburn through those water droplets. But if it’s cool and cloudy, other types of fungal issues can develop. So again, you might see some reddish to purplish spots on the foliage. That’s not unusual um with with oakleaf hydrangeanger. Jetream is probably one of the best that I’ve seen. The foliage is fairly clean, just a few little spots on it, but this one’s going to be a really good disease resistant variety. So, if you’re looking for um you know, something that has lesser spots, cleaner leaves, you’ll you’ll find it with Jetream. So, that’s a good variety there. What else do I want to tell you about attribute-wise? They’re just they’re a lovely hydrangeanger and and if you are into foliage color and texture uh like I am, you’ll really appreciate this plant in the landscape. It really is beautiful. Let’s talk about varieties here. And again, I told you varieties, depending on varieties, you could get a twoft, you know, oakleaf hydrangeanger all the way to an 8ft oakleaf hydrangeanger. So again, just make sure you’re reading your tags and you know where you’re planting these and you give the small ones enough space. Obviously, they can fit in in smaller corners and things. And the large ones, you want to make sure you’re giving them enough space to really fill out. Oh, I should have mentioned stems on oakleaf hydrangeanger are fairly strong. They really kind of stand up really nicely. It’s very rare that a rainstorm will come through and knock these over. So, they’re nice, strong, and sturdy multi- stem shrubs typically. And the panacles tend to stand up um up off the foliage and they stand really nice and and tall. So, it’s really nice to have that again that nice sturdy structure out there uh with this hydrangeanger family. Okay, let’s talk about varieties. Um, and I’m going to start with this uh short one. Obviously, this is a dwarf variety. This one is called Pee-Wee. There are several dwarf varieties. Again, just check your tags. But pee-wee is about a two to three footer, and you can tell very, very close to its pot right now. It is a young plant. Uh the foliage tends to be a little bit smaller with your dwarf varieties and then it will get a little bit larger with some of the bigger varieties. So you can sometimes see that in a pot. I’m going to tell you oakleaf hydrangeanger really don’t love being in a pot. Um we’ll get some stretching. We’ll get some dwarfs that look like they’re going to be much bigger and then when you plant them in the landscape and they’re happy and they settle in, they tend to stay very small. Uh so again, just just look at those tags. But this is Peewee. Pee-Wee is just pushing out its panacle flowers here. Uh beautiful bright green foliage. Uh the panacles on Pee-Wee are a little bit smaller again being a dwarf, but very nice. And again, these panacles will blush and deepen in pink as they mature uh into the later season. And also the foliage is going to turn those hues of purpley red as well. Peeweee is a very cool dwarf type that has been crossed with snow queen back here. And snow queen’s one of the largest that we’ll show you today. But they have made some pretty cool crosses and at actually they were made at the national arboritum. So I’m going to tell you about one of those next. So Peeweee and Snow Queen, the National Arboritum, they came up with Ruby Slipper. Ruby Slipper is like a semi- dwarf, 3 to 5 foot, and Taylor will correct me, but I think 3 to 5 foot tall, about 3 to 5 foot wide on Ruby Slipper. Ruby Slipper gets her name from her white panacles that turn. And as they turn, they really do get into that blush pink rose color. And then they get a nice kind of ruby red color as they mature. Okay. Again, semi- dwarf, beautiful uh foliage again. And she’ll still get that those purpley red colors, burgundy colors on foliage as well. So that’s an interesting cross between those two. I really like it. Okay, another one that we have here. This one is called Queen of Hearts. Queen of Hearts is also a cross between Pee-Wee and Snow Queen. Okay. Again, very unique. A little bit bigger here. So, uh, your Queen of Hearts is going to be, let’s say, four to six foot tall and wide. Larger foliage here, larger panacles. And these panacles, I kind of liken them to um, Pinky Winky, if you’re familiar with that. uh panacle hydrangeanger that we have and then we grow. The color starts at the base and really starts to fill up towards the top here. Again, deeper rosy red colors on the flowers. Large uh larger foliage size. Really, really nice uh plant. Very very pretty. Snow queen in the back. She looks pretty big and wide. She is reaching out to this side. Snow Queen is going to be like that four to sixfooter. Again, um can get four to six foot wide as well, but again, white flowering typically with a blush. Very, very nice plant, too. Okay, so again, look at your tags for your sizes. What’s interesting is Jetream in front of me is actually the largest at maturity of all of these hydrangeas. So Jetream is going to be that five to sixfooter. So up here folks, right? And also about the same width too. Five to six foot. So jetream will come up and fill. But again, look at the flower power on this plant. Really coming out. Lots of panacles here. Foliage is all this new foliage is really pushing out and developing through the season. You’ve got older panacles that have already blushed and reened. You have newer panacles coming out. So, this is a really nice oakleaf hydrangeanger from uh first editions. And you can tell foliage is a is a lot cleaner than some of the others out here. So, this is going to be a newer variety uh for us in the landscape and looks to be like it will really do a great job for us. One last thing that I forgot to mention attribute-wise, we consider oakleaf hydrangeanger a plant that provides year round interest. Not only do you have beautiful bold textured foliage for three growing seasons and then of course you’ve got beautiful flowering that will last anywhere from let’s say a month to two months. So good long blooms um on these on these plants. But the other thing is in the winter after you lose the leaves and the fall color, you will notice that you can leave the flowers on and let them stay dried in the winter. So that’s going to be some winter interest. But the stems on oakleaf hydrangeanger as they get older are exfoliating stems. So they have this beautiful sort of silvery brown and coloration to them and they are quite pretty in the winter time. So a plant that you will be able to find something interesting to look at to get interest in your garden year round. So that’s always a great benefit um when we’re talking about you know some of the hydrangeas as well. Okay, I think I’ve hit most of them. We do have other varieties. So, please check us out online at petiticenter.com. There are many different types of oakleaf hydrangeanger. I think we have about eight or nine that are out there in production right now. All a little bit different as you can see. And remember, they really like part shade. That is going to be the best condition for them. They can go in full sun, keep them evenly moist in that condition. They can go in deeper shade much better than some of the other hydrangeas and still perform very well. They love to have consistent moisture. Again, one inch of water one time per week when you’re getting them established and when they are dry. So, do keep them an eye on your watering. Fertilize twice a year. Please fertilize your plants right in spring with plant tone and iron tone and again midsummer. That’s always going to be great for them. And then just remember with the pruning maintenance, they are very similar to macrofila hydrangeas. You do not need to prune heavy into these plants. They produce their buds on old wood. So again, as they flush out in spring, just remove any of that dry, damaged, diseased or dead off the top just to the uppermost green growth and you will be fine. These plants will do very well for you. Enjoy.