A large growing climber, Schizophragma integrifolium var. fauriei tolerates more sun than most of the hydrangea climbers and grows with purpose. It clings by holdfasts to your tree, wall or house, but not your leg (we’re not talking Akebia here). Unless you’re a statue, and if so, pay by cash. Large white blooms in late spring will make a tremendous addition to almost any vertical space. Slightly smaller leaves and less tomentose than SKU #631, but otherwise very similar. I believe it was the learned, but apparently boring taxonomist Alfred Rehder who made the varietal distinction based on some unknown trait that he never disclosed. Height or length to 40 feet plus.
Zones 6?-9.
Introducing Hydrangea anomala subsp. anomala - another species of climbing hydrangea vine. Rarely offered, and less showy than its more common cousin petiolaris, anomala’s robust, shiny dark green leaves and pleasant white flowers are a refreshing change of pace for the discerning eye. Likeable pointy new buds in Spring promise another year of beauty. Fool your gardening friends who think they know climbing hydrangeas with this easy to grow vine. Deciduous. Zones 5-8.
Schizophragma hydrangeoides ’Moonlight’ has luminous silvery-green foliage with dark green veins in its youth. The summer flowers are white, lacecap inflorescences. A true clinging vine, it grows most happily on stone or brick or up a shady tree - anything it can securely grasp. Were it never to bloom the foliage alone is dazzling. It’s the first of the "hydrangea" vines to leaf out in spring for us a few weeks before its cousin ’Roseum’ or the larger, rampant Schizophragma integrifolia (either form we grow). As for Schizophragma megalocarpum we are standing back in some awe. It’s been close to evergreen in our zone (semi-deciduous would be the textbook claim). As for Moonlight, it’s best in part shade. Beautiful plant. Length or height? We saw one covering the end of an old stone barn (30 feet tall) in Wales. It has climbed more than 40 feet up various pines trees here. Zones 5-7.
Schizophragma hydrangeoides ’Roseum’ is a blush-pink flowered form of the Japanese climbing hydrangea vine. It is pink for us in the south only on first opening, quickly becoming white under our heat & humidity. But for those days it reminds us that spring is a time of wide possibility. Even pink. (We saw stable pinkness at Crug Farm in Wales many years ago.) A true climber it will attach to your wall or tree and head up. Deciduous, for partial shade in zones 5 to 7, it may reach 30’ in time. Blooms more readily in our experience than the other "hydrangea" climbers. Rare.
