Hydrangeas for American Gardens is an important reference for North American landscape gardeners wanting to select and grow hydrangeas. Most plant books about hydrangeas focus on European or New Zealand understanding and practices.
"...existing hydrangea references do not adequately detail the cultural idiosyncrasies associated with this vast garden, the United States of America," states retired University of GA, (Athens) horticulture professor Michael A. Dirr on page 10 in Hydrangeas for American Gardens, 2004.
Dirr demonstrates his enthusiasm for hydrangeas and plants in general on page 11of the same book when he says, "Plants are neither learned nor appreciated from Internet gleanings. They must be observed, stroked, studied, grown, and photographed at different times and places. With hydrangeas on the brain, I have traveled to many collections for such activities. At one garden in the southwest of England, approximately 360 cultivars of Hydrangea macrophylla unfolded before my purview. The mind became mush, the knees buckled, and the camera imploded."
Designing with Hydrangeas
Dirr saves design uses - what most landscape gardeners look for in almost any plant book - until a few pages near the book's end. Hydrangea Potpourri contains hydrangea landscape information along with other practical design topics. Here, Dirr shows himself as a dedicated plantsman rather than a designer.
Timeliness of Hydrangeas for American Gardens
Hydrangeas for American Gardens may be deemed an essential reference. However, in all probability, it remains a snapshot of landscape hydrangeas at the beginning of the millennium. Dirr provides solid lists of current resources, nursery sources, and references. However, these change, often over short periods of time.
Substantial speculation in the final chapter guides readers to think about future advances in hydrangea improvement. The advances made in remontant (reblooming) cultivars like 'Endless Summer' show that there is a future chapter to be written about North American hydrangeas.
Hydrangea Characteristics, Taxonomy and Nomenclature
Chapter one is devoted to botanical characteristics of and classification information about Hydrangea. The information is academic but peppered with Dirr's acerbic observations about available Hydrangea classification and taxonomic literature. The chapter is important to readers who want an underlying sense of why sorting through scientific literature, nursery catalogs and Internet to make botanical, horticultural and garden sense of Hydrangea scientific names is such a problem.
Hydrangea Species and Cultivars
The middle ten chapters are cause enough for landscape gardeners to buy this book. They are its bones containing Hydrangea photographs, illustrations and Dirr's personal observations. Summaries of identification characteristics such as leaves, buds, stems and flowers assist understanding of Dirr's species descriptions and summaries of select cultivars. A chapter is devoted to each of the following species and one group of species:
- Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris (Climbing Hydrangea)
- Hydrangea arborescens (Smooth Hydrangea)
- Hydrangea aspera
- Hydrangea heteromalla
- Hydrangea involucrata
- Hydrangea macrophylla (Bigleaf Hydrangea)
- Hydrangea paniculata (Panicled Hydrangea)
- Hydrangea quercifolia (Oakleaf Hydrangea)
- Hydrangea serrata
- Species taxonomically unsettled and little known.
Hydrangea Culture, Garden Care, Pests and Diseases
These topics are the meat that fleshes out the pictorial bones of this book. Standards for growing first-rate hydrangeas pack large fact-filled chapters. A prime mystery of hydrangea growing - flower color - explained in detail. Hydrangeas are surprisingly disease- and pest- free. Most of their disorders arise because of environmental conditions. Topics covered in these chapters also include:
- Soils
- Moisture
- Planting
- Sun / Shade
- Fertilizer, and
- Pruning.
Specifics
Hydrangeas for American Gardens. Michael A. Dirr. ISBN-13: 978081926415. Publication Date: June 15, 2004. Hardcover Pages: 236 pp. Illustrations: 199 color photos by Dirr, 5 color paintings by his wife, Bonnie L. Dirr. Copyright: ©2004 Timber Press.
CD-ROM of more than 900 labeled hydrangea Dirr photographs. Varsity Press, Inc., 337 S. Milledge Ave., Suite 125, Athens, GA.
Georgene A. Bramlage - Suite 101 Landscaping Feature Writer and Topic Editor Free-lance Garden and Landscape Writer and Consultant
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