More flowers, more revenue

Photos courtesy of Bailey Nursery

When a plant brand lives up to its promises, it means a run of successful seasons for the grower and the entire supply chain. David Tankard Jr., co-owner of David’s Nursery, chose to grow Endless Summer hydrangeas for their remontant (reblooming) characteristic, which makes it a valuable plant to the end consumer. The Virginia-based nursery has been buying “significant quantities” of Endless Summer hydrangeas since at least 2012, but Tankard suspects it’s been longer.

“Their ability to rebloom is the number one thing that has driven sales,” Tankard says.

Bailey Nurseries introduced The Original Endless Summer to the market after it was discovered in one of the nursery’s trial gardens. The Original (Hydrangea macrophylla) was the first on the market to rebloom during the growing season. Since then, Bailey has introduced four other selections, Blushing Bride, Twist-n-Shout, BloomStruck and most recently Summer Crush. Blushing Bride offers white flowers that mature to a soft pink; Twist-n-Shout is a lacecap variety with pink or periwinkle blue flowers; BloomStruck features red stems with either rose-pink or purple flower heads; and Summer Crush has large, raspberry-red flowers.

David’s Nursery sells four of the selections from the Endless Summer line, with The Original making up the most of their stock.

“We sell them in 3-gallon, 5-gallon, 10-gallon and 20-gallon sizes. They are also relatively problem free [in production],” Tankard says.

He plans to add Summer Crush to his availability soon.

“We are planning to grow it,” he says. “Since we have had such good past success with all the other Endless Summer varieties, we will certainly give any new variety a try.”

The hydrangea market has been growing steadily for the last few years, and Tankard attributes much of that growth to the reblooming Endless Summer introductions. And he anticipates that hydrangeas, specifically the Endless Summer line, will “maintain its current high level of demand” for the next several years.