Pruning to a tree?

[para_chan]

I just bought a bigleaf hydrangea (I haven't even got it in the ground yet) and I was wondering if it's possible to prune it to that it takes on a tree-form.

Also, the nursery where I bought it didn't have labels on anything. I know it's a bigleaf hydrangea, but I have a suspicion that it's a reblooming one as well. The flowers that are on it now are at the ends of the branches, on stems that are bright green. There's very little wood that looks "old" to me. I may just be mistaken though-this is the first hydrangea I've had the pleasure of getting up close to.

Thanks!

[pd]

para-chan

I very much doubt if any hydrangea can be pruned to the form of a tree. The closest in my experience would be the wall shrub H petiolaris and that would not be self supporting in the conventional form of a tree.

[MaineDesigner]

Hydrangea paniculata can be pruned into a tree form and, as pd suggests, I suspect that H. petiolaris could be trained around a support into something resembling a tree form. In the case of H. macrophylla I think it would have to grafted onto another understock to produce a standard or tree form.

What kind of nursery doesn't label their plants? Most of the remontant (reblooming) forms I'm familiar with are patented. One can certainly argue whether or not patenting cultivars is a good thing but if this nursery is propagating patented plants without a license they are breaking the law. Properly licensed plants should come with the appropriate tags.

[pd]

Marine Designer
That is very interesting - I didn't know that H.paniculata could be traned into a standard form.

para_chan
Do you know which hydrangea you have?

[para_chan]

My plant's definitely a H. macrophylla. I'll just have to love it in bush form then. Thanks for the info!

IMO, it was a very strange nursery. It was out off of the main road, and the business building was a mobile home trailer (like a double-wide). The plants were just growing in pots around the property. I went there on the advice of someone else and once I got there, I didn't want to be a jerk and not buy anything after asking the owner where things were.

I've noticed a lot of businesses down here in NC are like that-run out of what appears to be a house or a trailer. I'm not sure if that's just normal down here or if it's really a mark of the quality of the business. (I'm from Pennsylvania originally)