Incrediball^® Blush Smooth hydrangea Hydrangea arborescens

Incrediball Hydrangea is my favorite. I have 12 of them and have had them for several years. They get plenty of compliments from people passing by. They have also won first place each year I have entered them in the fair. They are pretty low maintenance once established.

Planted six last year, around late Summer, early Fall. The stems are extremely finicky; either rotting until hollow until they flop with too much rain, or so brittle that they snap during dry spells. Would not recommend for heavy clay soils or temperamental weather areas with a lot of wind. These issues have been either or since the beginning of the growing season. They seem to resemble an Annabelle in the worst ways, so I would skip these and go for LimeLight variations, or even something more compact and strong such as a BoBo. Giving two stars because the blooms are Incredible. Like white clouds that can get almost a foot wide and round. They just don’t last once the weather has its say. I am excited to see the next variation of this cultivar.

We bought quarts of these in June and planted - they took well, and are growing well. They are in part shade (a.m.) with about 3 hours of full sun in afternoon. We had some super hot days in August, and a bit of a drought. This affected the plants - some of them had leaves that were burnt to a crisp, even though we kept them watered in the early mornings as much as we are able. However, even with the hot sun really frying them, they seem to be bouncing back well! My advice for others if in a hot zone would be to try to get these into a shade/part shade planting site with morning sun rather than the blazing afternoon inferno. (Our older incrediballs were tolerant of the heat, but the babies struggled). It's looking like they will be OK over winter and let's hope they come back strong next year!

I planted an Incrediball Blush that I purchased for $15-20, for the starter quart size in late may of this year. As of today, 8/4, it has two soft-ball sized blooms sitting 16-18 inches off the ground. Two more blooms are forming on lower branches. New leaf buds are forming all along the established branches. Very impressed with this vigorous first year growth, given the size when purchased. Doing better than Bobos and Let's Dance varieties planted at same time/size. Bloom color is very attractive, the silvery pink description in the marketing materials is accurate. I very much look forward to this reaching full size in future years.

I used to have the Hydrangea species native to Asia but they did poorly so I replaced them with this native. It blooms on new wood, so winter won't rob me of flowers. Also, I did not realize it reblooms! It is currently in bloom here in NC in September. Was delivered healthy and packaged very well. The gallon size is huge. The size compares to my old hydrangeas I had had for a few years.