BUT YOU CAN'T GROW DONNA REED:

Hardy hydrangeas: This summer favorite comes in an ever-expanding array of varieties that can thrive in a colder climate. (Carol Stocker, August 14, 2011, Boston Globe)

These are exciting times for hydrangea lovers. Colored varieties will now bloom in the North where once only white hydrangeas flowered dependably. It started with the blue mophead Endless Summer, a freak of nature found in a Minnesota backyard in the 1980s and made widely available to gardeners less than a decade ago.

Endless Summer touched off a hydrangea hybridizing frenzy that has since produced such colorful, hardy Northern hydrangeas as red and green Pistachio, rose pink Double Delights Perfection, and the blue lacecap Double Delights Star Gazer. There are also new varieties of peegee hydrangeas (the plant's botanical name, H. paniculata Grandiflora, is the source of the nickname peegee) that are more colorful and compact than the familiar 20-foot arching shrubs.

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