Warm summer days and cool summer nights make Vermont an ideal gardening spot. While cold winters limit plant choices, we can still grow quite a variety of plants. Yet we lust for that which we cannot have — like the blue-flowering hydrangea. Well, our garden dreams have been answered.

Here’s the story, or at least one of the stories. An employee at Bailey’s Nursery in Minnesota discovered an unusual hydrangea. He brought it to one of the trial growing areas. Dr. Michael Dirr, a woody plant expert, noticed it on a trip through the trial yard. Having long been searching for a perpetually-flowering hydrangea macrophylla, he asked for and was given cuttings. After years of extensive testing, his theory was confirmed: this hydrangea was indeed perpetual- flowering.

Growing hydrangea macrophylla this far north has always been frustrating because they bloom only on old wood. If a plant, such as Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Nikko Blue’ died to the ground each winter or a late frost damaged the buds, it would not flower at all the following season.

Dr. Dirr discovered that this plant he was testing bloomed on both old and new wood. It will bloom every season no matter how much die-back it suffers. Growing trials have shown continuous bloom from June until frost. The plant has been named ‘Endless Summer’.

‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea is hardy to Zone 4 and grows 3 - 5 feet high and wide. Flower color is dependent upon the soil type: pink in alkaline soils and blue in acidic soils. You can try adding a fertilizer specifically created for acid loving plants (Espoma Holly Tone) to your soil each spring. Be aware that it may take an entire growing season to change the acid content of soil and the flower color. Your pink flower will not turn blue over night.

‘Endless Summer’ is in limited supply as we try to catch up with demand. So, if you want it NOW, you’d better come and get it!