This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Ancient hydrangea?
TheDragonflyGardener
Posts: 9
in Plants
Just a thought that frequently goes through my head.... We live in a 300+ year old cottage in Devon and there is a hydrangea outside the front door which is clearly very old but still flowers well every year. The cottage is thatched and in a row of similarly ancient cottages so is regularly photographed. I have started to collect postcards of the village which include the cottage and every one of them shows a hydrangea in that same spot - even the ones that are over 100 years old!!! Does anyone know just how long a hydrangea can live for?
0
Posts
I don't know how long for the longest, but mine is thirty and still doing fine. If you took a cutting from yours, it would be a clone with the identical genes, so effectively the same plant. It could live for ever!
The accompanying photo shows a large 'mophead' hydrangea which was planted by Mum & Dad in the mid-'1950's: I remember rollerskating (badly) and ended up nose-diving into it one Christmas morning when I was seven or eight years old - just after taking the bungalow over from the builders. It's still going strong nowadays & I have brought cuttings to root in my west-Walian garden.