Smooth Hydrangea

Description

Botanical Name:  Hydrangea arborescens

Common Name:  Smooth Hydrangea, Wild Hydrangea, Sevenbark

Description:    This is a beautiful Florida native hydrangea that isn’t used as often in our gardens as it should be.

It’s a small, mound-shaped, densely multi-stemmed shrub,  that quickly grows 3-6′ tall x 6-8′ wide. The flat-topped clusters of delicate, greenish-white flowers are the deciduous shrub’s main landscape feature. Some flowers are so heavy as to weigh the stem to the ground. The flowers are very delicate looking and can be either lacecap or mophead shaped. It blooms heavily in spring, with scattered blooms through September. The flowers do not change color according to the soil pH. The naturally peeling bark is attractive. Gray-brown stems are clad with opposite, broad egg-shaped to rounded, sharply toothed, dark green leaves (2-6” long) with pale green undersides. The leaves turn a pretty yellow color in fall. Flowers give way to dehiscent seed capsules which ripen in October-November.

This isn’t drought tolerant, so it will need supplemental watering during times of drought. It grows naturally as an understory shrub, so plant it in the part sun to part shade areas of your garden. Is a good choice for your rain garden. Good cut or dried flower.

Native bees, wasps, beetles, butterflies, and other pollinators are attracted to the blooms. Is a host plant for the Hydrangea sphinx moth.

It is native to Walton and Liberty counties in Florida. And it is listed as endangered, which means “[a] species of plants native to the state that are in imminent danger of extinction within the state, the survival of which is unlikely if the causes of a decline in the number of plants continue, and includes all species determined to be endangered or threatened pursuant to the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended” (Atlas of Florida Plants). So, please, if you see it in the wild, take only pictures of it.

Its native habitat is woods, rocky slopes, and stream banks in rich, well-drained, moist, acidic soils. It is tolerant of poor soils, including clay as long as it is well drained.

Moderate tolerance to salty wind. Low to no tolerance to direct salt spray or water.

Plant Lore: A very cool tidbit about this plant is the flowers can be either lacecap or mophead style. There’s no way to tell how they will look until they bloom. Both types can occur on the same plant. The genus name Hydrangea comes from hydor meaning “water” and aggeion meaning “vessel”, in reference to the cup-like capsular fruit. Specific epithet comes from arbor meaning “tree” in reference to the similarity of this shrub to a small tree.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 9