Hydrangea

A gold edged variegated form of Climbing Hydrangea, not to be confused with Hydrangea macrophylla serrata 'Miranda'. This 'Miranda’ is a spectacular new vine; young plants take a few years to come into their own but will eventually become quite large. There is some confusion about the variegated forms of Hydrangea anomola ssp. petiolaris, ‘Miranda’ and ‘Firefly’ were independently discovered at about the same time; unfortunately they are nearly indistinguishable and may have been mixed up (not by us) during early propagation efforts.

This has been kicking around the nursery since the mid 90’s and we have not offered it in a while, however we took another look at it this summer and decided it was worthy of propagation.

Dirr collected this in Coach Vince Dooley’s back yard (cheaper than a trip to China?); its a frost resistant variety with little or no tip dieback and robust clusters of blue or pink flowers depending on soil pH. We suspect its been previously circulated under a different cultivar name but if Dirr couldn’t put a name to it, we won’t even attempt to.

A somewhat confusing name, the plant we grow under this name is a white edged form that we acquired from Mitch years ago. There is also apparently a picotee petaled thing that is also called ‘Harlequin’.

A standout in the Spring Meadow trials tight heads of toothed florets ranging from a good blue to pink depending on pH held on strong stems, above small clear green dentate leaves.