Nan,
I think you can sleep well after giving your babies away to new homes. I just looked through Dirrs Hydrangeas for American Gardens and he goes into detail on how to propogate multiple Hydrangeas including H. paniculata from seed.
He does mention the H. paniculata 'Tardiva'florescences are a mixture of fertile and sterile flowers.
Dirr refering to H. paniculata also wrote The species has naturalized as the dominant shrub in a clearing in a red maple swamp, Lincoln Massachusetts. I have never witnessed a stray seedling.
Now that I can recognize H. quercifolia seedlings I have eight babies growing (in all the wrong places) throughout the yard. I would love to know what a young H. paniculata looks like.

Hi Katy - aha, I see I need another Dirr on my bookshelf!

Thanks for that info. It's worrisome that they're appearing in swamps; I hope I'm not propagating a monster.

I've got oakleaf volunteers, too, and they seem to come up in the *strangest* places. I suspect that they need to be potted up when they're young, or all hope of moving them by hand would be lost - the root system is so tenacious. Also see some offspring of preziosa, which I think IS a hybrid (which has been disputed for years) because the offfspring are so variable.

Interesting . . .

I wonder if Hydrangeas are self-fertile or if they need a different cultivar of the same species, and also if any of these are hybrids since you have several kinds of hydrangeas. You have me curious as to whether if I will get fertile seed from my hydrangeas. I guess I'll have to dig out my copy of Dirr's "Hydrangeas" and do some more reading. So far it's been used mostly to drool over the various varieties he describes, many of which I can't grow.

Nan, you can't be 100% sure that your Tardiva seedlings will be true to the parent because, I assume, you have another cultivars in your garden.
Hovever, chances are close to 99.9% for two reasons:
a) Tardiva is a latest bloomer of all paniculatas and chances of it to be polinated by another cultivar are extremely close to zero,
and
b) even with controlled crosses paniculatas are notorious to produce 95% of seedlings identical to the mother (seed producing) plant.

As a matter of fact every year I have 15-20 naturaly occuring seedlins from Limelight and PG and they are always true to the parents.

On a separate note. Have you seen the new TRUE dwarf paniculata, 'Bombshell'?
It's in its second year in my garden and I love it very much :-)

Hi Ego - I have not seen Bombshell, actually I hadn't heard of it until your post, but it does look wonderful. The only PG I've grown was Tardiva, until last year when I planted 'Little Lamb' - so far, I really love it.

I'm thinking that if my garden has a theme this year, it's got to be "Too Many Hydrangeas" - they're hard to resist! I hope you'll post some photos of your garden, George - it's been awhile!

Hi - could someone post a picture or send a link to a picture of a seedling? I can't find one online. I'm wondering if my Tardiva has been leaving seedlings and I've been weeding them by mistake! I'd love to add more of them to my gardens!

Renee,
I googled my little fingers off and couldn't find photos of Tardivia seedlings as I would like to know myself. I do have tons of Oak Leaf Hydrangea seedlings that look nothing like the parent when they are young as it takes a while before their leaves develop the oak leafshape. As soon as I have a moment I will snap some photos. kt

Two Hydrangea quercifolia seedlings note the fungal spots�poor baby

H. quercifolia a little larger but leaf shape is still oval rather than "oak" shape. I suspect that by this fall the leaf shape will have changed.

One year old H. quercifolia easily identifiable.

Group of two year old H. quercifolia need to be transplanted�this fall. Or do you think I should wait until March?

Wow, Katy, I see you're growing coins in your garden now - what a fantastic idea. Where'd you get the seeds? Those oakleaf pictures are useful - I'd have guessed the plants in the 2nd one were some other kind of hydrangea.

Renee, I'm not what you'd call an avid weeder, so sometimes a seedling will be in bloom before I realize it's there. I'll see if I can find some little Tardivas and get some photos, though.

If the seedlings bother either of you, rkr and dtd, drop me line and I'll help dispose of them.....Still working on filling up that hillside to the hilt....or the hydra

dtd,
I have hesitated sharing seeds from my coin tree as the tree litter of quarters causes chaos when mowing underneath because the quarters shoot like bullets causing stinging injury to deer, rabbits, and rude neighbors.

Marie,
I will put aside some H.quercifolia for you how many would you like?

Runtrun, thank you for posting the pictures. I'm inspired to hold of weeding under my Tardiva for a little while and see if any 'weeds' turn into babies!

Renee - of all the Tardiva seedlings I've found, NONE has been under the parent plants - they've been at least 10' away, and some much more than that. Mulch seems to encourage them!

Thanks diggingthedirt...I will keep that in mind!

In search of how to deal w/ Tardiva ~ I found this thread. I happened to have recently created an album of 2 paniculatas & babes ~ a rooted broken branch & 2 grown from seeds ~ thought to post FWIW.

Thanks for viewing!

Here is a link that might be useful: H paniculatas & babes