Hydrangea confetti: description, care, reproduction

The variety of the panicle hydrangea Confetti – these are plants that can decorate any plot, thanks to the rich, festive, and most importantly – long blooming. Hydrangeas are unpretentious and adapt well to gardens in the middle climatic zone because of their innate love of moisture and good tolerance of low temperatures.

Table of contents

Variety description

Hydrangea paniculata Confetti is a beautiful element of landscape design of the site, characterized by good tolerance of cold weather and ease of care.

Hydrangea characteristics:

The flowering period from July to September.
The height of the shrub is medium – up to 1-1.5 meters.
Leaves are rich, dark green in color and oval in shape.
The inflorescences are cone-shaped, large (up to 30 cm).
The color of the petals – white, light pink.
The change in color of the inflorescences begins in the second week of flowering. The lower tiers of flowers acquire a pinkish hue of varying intensity.
The plant is highly winter-hardy and tolerates a decrease in ambient temperature to -29 degrees Celsius.

As in other varieties of panicular hydrangea, the flowers in the inflorescences of Confetti are sterile and do not participate in the sexual reproduction of the shrub. Despite this fact, the garden crop has several methods of vegetative propagation by shoots and offshoots, which allows gardeners to easily obtain the necessary number of bushes.

Care of Hydrangea Confetti

Confetti is not a picky garden dweller and can take root in almost any environment, but to get a rich flower crown, gardeners should consider several important factors when planting and growing the plant:

The soil at the planting site should be enriched with nutrients and moisture, as well as have an acidic or slightly acidic environment. An alkaline environment and the introduction of lime is strictly contraindicated to hydrangea health.
The shrub likes moisture and is hard to tolerate drought. The optimal volume of water for watering – 30 liters per 1 square meter (1 time in 14 days, in the dry period, watering is carried out at a noticeable drying of the soil).
Hydrangea “Confetti” refers to the medium-height panicle varieties, so it is worth paying attention to the fact that planting the shrub in the shadow of other plants can affect the abundance and beauty of flowering. The plant likes sites with medium light (without direct sunlight).
Feeding is carried out several times throughout the year.
Corrective spring and thorough autumn pruning allows you to form a beautiful and neat shape of the shrub, as well as improve the health of the plant.
Mulching and insulating shrubs for the winter avoids death or serious tissue damage to hydrangeas when temperatures drop drastically during the colder months.

Hydrangea Confetti is commonly planted as an independent plant or as a group to form a hedge or tiered floral arrangements.

Soil preparation

Before planting hydrangea seedlings in the spring, it is necessary to prepare appropriate soil conditions to facilitate the adaptation of the shrub in a new place.

The optimum composition of the soil mixture:

enriched soil – 2 parts;
top peat (for acidification) – 2 parts;
humus (10 kg per 1 sq. m) – 1 part;
sand (to exclude the development of stagnant processes in the root system area) – 1 part;
urea (carbamide) – 25 g
superphosphate – 65 g;
potassium sulfate – 25 g;
pine or spruce needles (soil acidification).

Prepared mixture is used to fill the bottom of prepared holes for planting and to cover the root system of the plant.

Planting

Before planting young shrubs (age 3-5 years) in the open ground, it is worth to decide what decorative effect the gardener expects after strengthening the plants. This will determine the distance between hydrangeas and pre-prepared holes.

Planting progress:

After the thawing of the soil, it is necessary to dig holes up to 60 cm wide, up to 40 cm deep at a distance of up to 1.5 meters (the normal diameter of an adult shrub “Confetti”) and cover the bottom with a prepared soil mixture.
The seedling is treated by removing diseased and dried roots. There should be at least 3 growth buds on the stem.
The bush is placed in a hole and covered with the remains of the soil mixture.
After fixing the plant, it should be abundantly watered, and the soil around it should be covered with bark or needles (a layer of 7 cm or more).

If the gardener aims to get a small flower hedge, the distance between bushes is reduced to 1 meter.

Pruning

Pruning Confetti Hydrangeas is divided into two steps:

Autumn – carried out by removing the inflorescences;
Spring pruning – by removing diseased, dry or frozen branches after wintering.

Thinning of the shrub and light shape corrections during the summer months are also recommended for a neat garden decoration.

It is worth remembering that when removing the shoots, it is necessary to leave at least 3-4 growth buds for further development of the shrub.

Feeding

Feeding hydrangeas promotes a lush crown and abundant flowering, and also allows you to make up for the loss of nutrients during the growing season.

Feeding Stages:

fall – with a high content of phosphorus and potassium;
spring – urea (20 g per 10 L of water);
during vegetation – up to 10 liters of manure per shrub.

Also gardeners have derived a formula for stimulating abundant flowering of panicle hydrangea varieties (in a ratio of 1:1:1, where one part equals 30 g, mix potassium sulfate, urea and superphosphate, then diluted in 10 liters of liquid). The maximum dosage is up to 30 liters of prepared solution.

Mulching and insulation

Even if the panicle hydrangeas tolerate the cold well, the shrub should be prepared for winter after flowering and pruning.

The course of insulation:

Hydrangea is wrapped with a layer of insulation.
Above the shrub, a structure is built from the base and a mesh covering, and the inner void is filled with dried fallen wood.
From above, the grid with the frame is covered with a dense, water-tight film.

This structure not only creates a microclimate around hydrangeas during cold weather, but also saves them from icing in the event of temperature contrasts.

Hydrangea panicula confetti: propagation

Despite the fact that the beautiful flowers of the plant do not give seeds and do not participate in the reproduction, gardeners are not in the least sad, because for the breeding of this beautiful plant are used several much easier ways of reproduction:

Cuttings – preparation of young cuttings before the beginning of coarsening of tissues (June), placing them in water and planting sprigs in pots after the appearance of roots. After the adaptation period, the young plant is planted on the plot.
Shrub division – dividing an adult plant into several young bushes.
Branches – a method of grounding and fixing the leaf-cleared shoot of the shrub. The method is characterized by the lowest efficiency.

The main advantage of asexual reproduction in relation to sexual reproduction is the complete preservation of the qualities of the mother individual, which means that young hydrangeas will be like two peas in a pod.

Hydrangea confetti – a striking example of the beauty of garden crops that can not only please the gardener with a bright crown and snow-white flowers, but also surprise with a change of color of petals in the eve of autumn.

Care for shrubs is largely reduced to the preparation of the soil and the trimming of sick and dried branches, otherwise – the plant remains easy and fairly easy to breed.