Nature Hills is here to help you stay on top of the newest offerings on the Nursery market and keep your garden on the cutting edge!
Introducing the newest Panicle Hydrangea - The French Manicure™ Hydrangea! Our very own Nature Hills introduction, and an exclusive offering you can only find on our website!
French Manicure™ (Hydrangea paniculata 'Bailpantwo' PPAF) features flowers that do what all Hydrangea paniculata types do …They start green, then as they open they gleam as a frothy bright white!
Then as the flowers age with the summer sun and cooler nights, that same flower head will develop the pink and red tones on the lower half of each flower panicle while the flower tips with the youngest florets remain white! Just like its classic manicure namesake!
This gives you unique Hydrangea flowers on a plant that stays much smaller than most other selections from this same species! Growing just 4 to 5 feet in height and width, allowing this well-groomed Panicle Hydrangea to look neat and tidy anywhere in the sun without sacrificing precious landscape space!
The summer blooming continues to dazzle and draw pollinators to your landscape as the blooms change color. Even as the fall season progresses, the blooms dry and remain on the shrub for a fantastic winter show!
But even before it’s in bloom, French Manicure™ looks lovely, filling out with lush green, quilted foliage with a delightful toothy edge! The textured foliage and sturdy stems look fantastic all growing season in USDA hardiness zones 3 through 8, growing at a moderate rate of speed.
Using the French Manicure™ Panicle Hydrangea in Your Landscape
Imagine one or more French Manicures™ in your garden or a few glorious blooms in a vase indoors! They look fantastic both fresh and dried! The summer blooming continues to dazzle and draw pollinators to your landscape as the blooms change color.
You’ll want to plant a few extra French Manicure™ for the bouquets and dried décor alone!
The possibilities are endless with this showoff of a shrub!
- Use these mid-sized shrubs as natural, informally pruned backdrops
- Perfect as low hedging to define garden beds and define your property
- Ideal foundation plants and anchors to accent your home's front gardens
- Imagine the restful outdoor garden rooms you can create with these gorgeous blooms
- Create a long hedgerow of this incredible Hydrangea, or among mixed shrub borders
- French Manicure™ would make the perfect specimens or as a focal point planting
- Mix into or backdrop your Cottage and Rose gardens
- Create bird and pollinator-friendly groupings to maximize the impact of these blooms
- Plant a curved mini-allée behind a garden bench or to accentuate sculpture or garden art
- Stand a pair flanking the entrance to your home or a pathway leading to your gardens
- French Manicure™ can handle large planters with ample moisture access
- Dress up a porch or patio, adding strategic shade or privacy around seating areas
French Manicure™ Hydrangea Care
As easy to grow as any Hydrangea; sun, moisture access, and an annual trim are really all these plants need to give you years of enjoyment! Don’t forget to pick up the Nature Hills Root Booster when you place your order!
Sun
Panicle Hydrangeas do their very best and have the strongest stems in full sun! So pick a location in your yard that receives at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. French Manicure™ also tolerates part shade as well, but you will notice the stems not standing quite as vertically and smaller blooms in less sun. But the cascading look will be gorgeous!
Soil and Moisture
Plant Hydrangea in enriched, well-drained soils, and a 3-4 inch layer of mulch over the surface, should be all that is needed to keep this plant happy. These plants love highly organic soil but despise soggy conditions.
Panicle Hydrangeas are not pH reactive, so no worry about changing the flower color whether your soil is alkaline or acidic!
We recommend the Finger Test method to ensure you are watering your shrub properly. Hydrangeas don’t like to dry out, so if you see yours wilting in the summer sun, top-dress the root system with some quality compost and check the depth of your mulch layer. Bringing it back to a 3-4 inch depth (just pull it back from touching the stems or smothering the crown).
Pruning
A simple once-a-year pruning job in early spring, before it starts to grow, is all that is needed. Prune off the old blooms and shorten up any branches needed to give the plant a nice rounded form in the size you like.
These deciduous shrubs also become revitalized by renewal pruning every 3-5 years. Trim a third of the oldest, fattest stems out at the ground level, leaving behind the younger, more vigorous stems behind.
Fertilizer
An early spring application of slow-release balanced fertilizer may be needed to keep your French Manicure™ Panicle Hydrangea in tip-top shape. As with most flowering plants, avoid excessive high-nitrogen fertilizer (lawn fertilizers) application since that will interrupt flowering and just encourage just green leafy growth.
Give Your Landscape A Mani/Pedi!
You won’t find this hot new Hydrangea anywhere else! Hurry and drop one of these incredible new flowering ornamental shrubs into your shopping cart and soon the neighbors will be green with envy!
Check out the fantastic French Manicure™ Hydrangea today - Only at Nature Hills!
Happy Planting!
