Hydrangea Quick Fire

* Common name: Hydrangea Quick Fire

* Botanical name: Hydrangea paniculata ‘Bulk’

* What it is: A panicle type of hydrangea, also known as a hardy hydrangea, that gets showy masses of big, white cone-shaped flowers that turn to a rosy-white bicolor and then to darker rose from early summer into fall. Quick Fire is the earliest of this type to bloom, starting two to four weeks sooner than the species.

* Size: 6 to 7 feet tall and wide. Can be pruned into a single-stem small tree or treated as a mid-sized flowering shrub. There’s also a Little Quick Fire variety that grows in the 4- to 5-foot range if the full-size Quick Fire is too big.

* Where to use: Great specimen for a house corner or a bed or border centerpiece. But a line of them also makes a striking flowering hedge when planted 5 or 6 feet apart along a fence or property line. Does fine in even full, direct summer sun but also blooms in half-day sun.

* Care: Prune at end of winter. Thin out and cut back stems by one third to one half (even more to maintain a smaller plant). If you’re pruning as a tree, remove any new shoots from the base, remove lower branches to clear trunk, then cut back remaining canopy into a tight ball. Scatter granular organic or slow-acting fertilizer in April. Water needed only in very hot, dry weather after regular watering the first season to establish the roots.

* Great partner: Catmint, salvia or dwarf Russian sage are good perennials around the base in sunny areas. Blue-blooming leadwort makes a nice massed underplanting in afternoon-shade areas.