Haas Halo Smooth Hydrangea

Haas Halo is the native smooth hydrangea for people who want the pollinators. Hydrangea arborescens 'Haas' Halo' is a lacecap rather than a mophead, carrying a broad ring of small fertile flowers around the outside of each head with showy sterile florets scattered through it, and bees feed at those fertile flowers steadily through the whole bloom. The heads run up to 14 inches across. It grows 3 to 5 feet tall and wide in part shade, hardy from Zone 3 through Zone 9, and reaches full size in three or four seasons.

Bloom starts in early summer and holds for weeks, the flat white heads carried well above the foliage.

The foliage is blue-green and noticeably leathery, and it holds up through heat and dry spells without the afternoon wilting that most hydrangeas do. That thicker leaf is the trait this selection is known for, along with the flower size.

Smooth hydrangea flowers on new wood, so the buds form in spring and a hard winter cannot take the display. This is a naturally occurring selection, found growing wild in a Pennsylvania prairie remnant. It wants consistent moisture and tolerates wet ground, and it takes more sun in the north than in the south.