Tina Krause spent many a summer on MacMahan Island in Maine, an idyllic place she remembers for its salty air and turn-of-the-20th-century cottages.
Another memory resonated later, after she grew up and started gardening: a row of shrubs in front of her family's home that bloomed all summer long.
Their immense white flowerheads looked almost human, nodding happily in the wind and seeming to weep, stems splayed, in the rain. It was enchanting.
Krause, now a retired family doctor living in Whitemarsh, has long since identified those memorable blooms: Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle,' also known as snowball hydrangea. And she credits them with sparking a lifelong fascination with this American garden favorite.
"I still buy 'Annabelles,' " she says.
Besides their sentimental pull, hydrangeas - including many new varieties - have other qualities to recommend them to gardeners. And Krause, a master gardener, often does.
"They're a real no-care plant, and they look good all year," she says.
Hydrangeas grow in a range of climates - from warm to cool to seashore - as shrubs, small trees or climbers. At their best in summer and fall, some tolerate sun, others shade, and most the vast territory in between.
They have diverse personalities, too, from massive to dainty, flamboyant to demure.
Massive and flamboyant would be Hydrangea macrophylla, the bigleaf Japanese native whose familiar "mopheads" of pink, blue or purple are considered the quintessential hydrangea. No question, they deserve the accolade.
But the bigleaf "lacecaps" are lovely, too, and more subtle. Their romantic, slow-waking florets form a bouquet of stars.
H. quercifolia or oakleaf hydrangea, another U.S. native, is named for the shape of its large leaves. These white flower pyramids turn rose and taupe in the fall, while the leaves bleed burgundy, bronze and purple.
For those who know it, this hydrangea surely ranks among the most splendid of all.
Best known in the H. paniculata category is PeeGee, a nickname derived from the botanical name, H. paniculata 'Grandiflora.' (Sometimes, garden centers confuse the issue by calling all paniculatas PeeGees, but now you know.)
Paniculatas look a lot like oakleafs, but their cone-shaped flowers are longer, and their leaves are oval.
