Hydrangea Trail Blazer Picotee

Hydrangea 'Hmopico04-0' Trail Blazer™ Picotee – Lacecap Hydrangea

Trail Blazer™ Picotee just doesn't stop! In our own trial at the nursery it has flowered continuously and carried flowers straight through winter, unprotected, while every other hydrangea is bare. The heads are wide, flat lacecaps: a ring of broad sterile florets in white to palest blush, each one finely rimmed in rose-pink, encircling a centre of tiny deep pink fertile flowers. The colour sits on the margin rather than washing through the floret, so every head has a gorgeous two-toned look.

Bud initiation isn't tied to daylength, so there is no seasonal off switch and no cold requirement to satisfy. It flowers on the current season's growth, which means a hard frost or a mistimed prune won't cost you the display. The plant holds its foliage as well, staying clothed and in leaf while deciduous hydrangeas are down to bare wood. Give it morning sun with afternoon shade and soil that stays reliably moist. It handles a more open position than older bigleaf types, but it is not a plant for dry feet. It reaches around 1 m tall and 90 cm wide, staying tighter again in a large pot. Deadhead spent heads to keep new flushes coming.

This is the same variety sold internationally as Game Changer® Picotee, cultivar 'Hmopico04-0'. It was bred at Green Fuse Botanicals in California and released in Australia under the Trail Blazer™ name.

A hydrangea that keeps flowering when almost nothing else in the garden is.

• Flowering: continuous in our conditions, including through winter
• Flower: white to blush lacecap florets with rose-pink picotee margins, deep pink fertile centre
• Foliage: evergreen in our conditions
• Position: morning sun to part shade, tolerates open positions
• Soil: moist, humus-rich, free-draining
• Mature height: 1 m
• Mature width: 90 cm