Women are certainly from Venus, but some hydrangeas are so exotic they seem to have come to us from Mars. For a unique hydrangea experience, the Cityline® Mars Hydrangea has a lot to offer. The large blooms look amazing, with every petal edged in white surrounding a deeply-colored center. The color of that center varies, depending on how acid or alkaline your soil is, but you can enjoy a pure, rich blue, or a wonderful pink, or purple tones in between, depending on where you grow this plant, and how you treat it. Not only that, this is one of the most compact of all the mop-head hydrangeas, so it is the perfect choice for today’s smaller gardens, or for growing in pots, containers and planter boxes.

The Cityline Mars Hydrangea is a compact deciduous shrub, growing between 1 and 3 feet tall, and the same size across. With its large leaves it makes a dense dome of foliage that looks great from spring to fall. The leaves are rounded, with a delicate point, and a thick texture, and they are 6 inches long and 4 inches wide. This plant may be small, but it isn’t weak. The stems are thick and sturdy, and they have no problem holding up the large flower heads – no flopping stems here. The foliage will stay rich green and glossy too, as this plant has excellent resistance to that curse of hydrangeas, powdery mildew. While older varieties become dusty and powdery in the heat of summer, this variety won’t, even if you never spray it.

Growing Cityline Mars Hydrangea

After the new shoots develop in spring, you will start to see a tiny cluster of green buds in the center of each growing tip. This gradually expands into a beautiful lime-green flower head, and then each bud expands and opens, at first cup-shaped and then into a flat cross of 4 large petals. Each petal has a fringed edge, and each flower is almost 1½ inches across. At first the flower head – packed with up to 50 large flowers – remains a beautiful pale chartreuse, but gradually the center of each flower becomes suffused with color. Depending on your soil (more on that later), the flower will be pure, deep blue, or rich, bright pink. In some conditions, a flower head may have an exciting mixture of both pink and blue blossoms. The flower heads last for weeks and weeks, gradually turning greenish, but still remaining charming and attractive. Eventually, they turn brown, and that is your signal to neatly snip them off, leaving an attractive leafy bush until the leaves fall for the year.

With its compact size the Cityline Mars Hydrangea is ideal for smaller gardens and for planters and pots, but it is also a great choice for the front of beds in larger gardens too. Mass planted – space the bushes 2 feet apart – it completes the picture in your beds perfectly, and with its long bloom time it brings color and interest for most of the summer. But it is in planters that it really wins, because it tucks neatly onto a balcony, or fits perfectly into a mixed planter of shrubs and flowers, adding color right where you need it. A single plant will grow well in a 10 to 12-inch diameter pot, and of course is a larger planter, alone or in groups of three.

The ideal spot to grow the Cityline Mars Hydrangea is in partial sun, with shade in the afternoon from the hottest weather. The north side of a building planted beside the wall is perfect, with clear sky overhead. In the shade of deciduous trees is another spot loved by hydrangeas, and they look great in more structured settings, or in natural wooded areas. The ideal soil is moist but well-drained, as these plants are not drought tolerant, and regular watering is key to succeeding with them.

The great benefit if growing the Cityline Mars Hydrangea in planters is that you can easily control the flower color. If you want blue flowers, you can struggle to do that in unsuitable garden soil, but in pots and planters it is easy. When grown in neutral or alkaline garden soil, with a pH over 6.5, The flowers will be pink, with a white edge. If your garden soil is pH 6.0 or less – acidic – then they will be blue and white. To grow in pots, plant them in potting soil blended for acid-loving plants, and regularly use a fertilizer that has been created for blue hydrangeas. It contains all the necessary elements for the complex processes inside the flower that make them blue, and for best results, you should start to use it when you first see those tiny green buds at the heart of the shoot. If your water supply is very alkaline, it is also beneficial to use rain-water for your plant, but not essential if you use the correct food. If you use regular potting soil, your plant will probably have the beautiful pink flowers that we also see in alkaline garden soil.

History and Origins of Cityline Mars Hydrangea Shrubs

The Cityline Mars Hydrangea is the product of an intensive breeding program carried out by Franz-Xaver and Konrad Rampp at their greenhouses, Rampp Jungpflanzen OHG, in Germany. They made many crosses between different hydrangeas, and then carefully collected the seeds. From among the thousands of seedlings that grew they selected just a very few of the absolute best. These are the Cityline® Hydrangea series, all with large flowers on compact plants. The variety they called ‘Ramars’ is awaiting a patent in the USA, and it is made available here under the name Mars. With its unique two-tone flowers this plant is sure to be a big winner, and our stock will soon be gone. Order now – and why not add some other plants from our Cityline® Hydrangea range, to compliment it?