Who is growing these? Thoughts and squawks please...
I was thinking of adding an oakleaf hydrangea and maybe a few annabelles....to my native landscape.
Oak leaf hydrangea
They are wonderful..I have several
The absolute best hydrangea. Great foliage, beautiful fall color, stunning flowers, yada, yada, yada.
Be warned that the species and many cultivars can get quite large, although they'll take quite a bit of hacking back (and deer browsing) without complaint. The cultivar "peewee" is supposed to be more reasonably sized.
I have four of these and I love them. Remember they need shade.
I ha and they seem to do very well there..Just need moistureve seen them in full sun
Absolute most favorite feed of deer. If you have deer, you will never see a bloom. They walked on my porch to get one in a pot. They pushed the deer netting down to poke the stems through and ate the buds off the ends. PeeWee hasn't been hardy for me here, but Sikes Dwarf has been, as has SnowQueen, Alice and Allison(but not Amethyst). Wonderful plants, with great fall color, and blooms when you get them.
I read the oakleaf can get 8 to 12' tall, I was a bit taken aback. I wasn't thinking of something that large. So then I thought perhaps I could do one oakleaf and then a few annabelles.
My lot is mostly shade from mature oak trees. We get morning sun, but mostly shade in the afternoon. When I moved here we removed alot of overgrown evergreen foundation shrubbery and a badly deteriorated raised planting bed. I have been slowly filling areas of the yard with mulch and ferns and woodland plants, but I need some more mid-size structure type plants and I'd like them to be native.
I was also thinking of adding a small grouping of baptisia bracteata near the planting next to the driveway.
I know these plants are not "evergreen" but they are shrubby...and hopefully will provide some more "structure"
Kevin....have you tried DEER OUT? It really works for me. We have many deer and my oakleaf is quite large and rarely touched.
Levilyla--that was my old house, where I did try everything to repel them. It was a herd of up to 16, that I often saw pass through 4X/day, no telling how often at night. Resistance was futile. Soooo, I moved, and put up a 7 1/2' deer fence at the new place, and never worry about deer anymore.
I am sure you did not move solely because os the deer....but I am glad it worked. Many people around here have fences...and I hear it is the only sure way except one person with a gorgeous garden had a deer get in through a hole somehow and couldn't get out!
I do know the deer are really really bad up in the chicago suburbs... is Elburn in the Chicago area?
Down here, deer can be a problem, but nearly as bad as they are near Chicago....
Elburn would be considered the farthest western suburb I suppose--just south and west of St. Charles(of Natural Garden fame)
Equilibrium
Apr 27, 2006
DEER OUT??? Won't work around here. The only thing that works around here is what Kevin did. Either that or let hunters set up a blind on your property and offer them snacks and such to encourage them to stay and nab a few Bambis.
I've got one Oak Leaf Hydrangea left and three Anabelles. Very nice plants.
How big are yours? (Um, plants, of course).
Are the Annabelles the ones that have the dried flowers on long stems in winter? An old house near the woods here (ironic) has lots of these planted en masse around the foundation, it's really nice-looking IMO.
Has anyone tried the old time solutions like hanging bars of irish spring soap or putting human hair around them? I never have tried them myself.
I know some friends that hang bars of soap on their trees. It works for a little while... but the deer get acclimated after awhile and start eating again.
Well DEER OUT certainly works better than a bar of soap
Yes, the deer do love the buds on the oak leaf hydrangea ( I now have a deer fence in that part of the property ) but we spray hinder or deer solution or repel x in the other parts of the garden outside the fence and by rotating the menu it seems quite effective. Though we don't plant much of anything that they truly love except some hosta by the front door, and I must say the smell is not pleasant for the first couple of days. Back to the oak leaf Hydrangea, I love it and as it so easy to dig up side shoots, I now have many. They will take full sun in my yard, but the biggest is on the south west side of the yard and it is huge. It is at least 8' most likely 10' tall. I love the fall color and the exfoliated bark in the winter. The ones on the south side are 4'x4'. Grow them and enjoy them if you can solve the deer problem. The oak leaf is the tall shrub in front of a 6 foot fence behind the viburnum. Patti
This message was edited May 12, 2006 1:13 PM
This message was edited May 12, 2006 1:14 PM
