Everyone loves hydrangeas and, thriving in partial shade, they are great shrubs for blooms later in the season. The classic colors are pink or blue, depending on your soil, and the flowers are long-lived, gradually fading or darkening as they age, sometimes to greenish tones. The Everlasting® Revolution Hydrangea is remarkable, because it has all these colors and more, on a single plant. Just one plant can have blooms of both blue and pink on it, and the colors as they age are a kaleidoscope of tones, from dark pink to dusky reds or purples, with fashionable greenish tones appearing too. One stem can be a whole bouquet, with different parts of the flower head being many different colors, and because they remain interesting for so long, a flower head has a life of 2 or even 3 months. On a bush that is also constantly sending up new shoots all season, this means an endless display, from May to September, and it’s a genuine revolution in hydrangeas.

The Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea is a compact bush, growing no more than 2 feet tall and wide, so it’s perfect for mass planting, today’s smaller gardens, city gardening and container growing. The almost-circular leaves are rich green, about 4 inches long, with a sturdy texture, attractive vein patterns and a bold serrated edge. Even without blooms this is a handsome plant, but the new leaves in spring have hardly opened before the flower buds start to stir. They develop first at the end of stems from the previous year, with a continuous display assured by the later blooms that come as new stems develop from lower down in your plant. This repeat blooming, on both old and new wood, is the secret to the everlasting flowering of this great shrub.

The first sign of blooms is a small cluster of pale-green buds nestling among the leaves, and this quickly expands into a dome-shaped head almost 5 inches across. It contains about 400 flowers, each one a flat blossom with 4 outstretched petals. As the head expands to its full size the pale, almost white flowers quickly darken and become reddish-pink in color. The Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea is so responsive that a single blooming head can be partially pink and partially blue with lovely intermediate tones as well. Flowers remain colorful and beautiful for a full 6 weeks, before gradually changing again, becoming darker at first, so that deep pinks, amethyst purples and true blues predominate. Then greenish tones start to appear, highlighting and enriching these tones, so that no two bloom-heads are ever the same. No other hydrangea comes close to the technicolor beauty of this plant, that you must grow and see to believe.

Grow the Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea in partial shade – locations with morning sun and afternoon shade are ideal. The soil should be rich and moist, but well-drained, and you don’t have to worry about its acid or alkaline balance, as this plant will normally be pink when it begins to flower, or perhaps more purplish in acid soils.  Enrich the soil before planting, and water twice a week for the first few weeks, and then at least weekly, or if you see any softening or drooping of the foliage. Hydrangeas are not drought resistant, and plants will need regular watering, especially during the summer months. Fertilizer in spring and summer will keep those blooms coming from May to September. 

Because of its compact size the Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea is ideal for planters and container growing. Just use regular potting soil, and watch those blooms turn from lighter pink to dark pink, and then develop purples, true blues and finally soft green tones, as they age. No special pruning is needed for this easy-care plant. In fact, pruning can reduce flowering, so simply remove any weak and damaged stems in early spring, leaving the buds on the tips of the older branches to start the flowering season with a bang. Just remove spent flower heads when they finally become unattractive – which you will see takes a long, long time to happen.

The mop-head hydrangeas are selected forms of Hydrangea macrophylla, a plant native to China and Japan. Over centuries gardeners there turned this low-key wild plant into a colorful blooming bush, and when these early varieties arrived in America and Europe they caused a big stir. Since then new varieties have been created, and the Netherlands is a huge center for growing and developing new hydrangeas. The variety officially named ‘Hokomarevo’ was found by Peter Kolster, a breeder and growing in Boskoop, as a unique mutation among a batch of plants of the ‘Xian’ variety – another of Kolster’s creations. Found in 2007, his new plant was at first developed as a cut-flower variety, so you know the blooms are especially beautiful, with sturdy stems. When its chameleon properties were seen it was obvious this would make a great garden and container plant too – which it certainly does. It was patented in 2011 and released by Plants Nouveau, a plant-breeders agency that makes the wonderful new products of these talented people available to gardeners. This plant is part of their trademarked Everlasting® Hydrangea series, all created by Peter Kolster. The variety called Everlasting® Revolution is the very best of the series, a real ‘blooming machine’ that not only keeps those flowers coming all season but makes sure it hits all the color bases along the way. These plants are making waves among gardeners, so our supply will soon by gone. Order now, its time to join the revolution.