Meet Shelia: The Hydrangea That Carries a Friendship North
Shelia, my over-achieving heart plant.
Some plants in my garden are just plants. And then there are the Heart Plants — the ones that carry a person, a place, a piece of home with them wherever they go. Shelia is one of those.
Where She Came From
Shelia is named for a very good friend of mine — a neighbor back in Alabama who I'm lucky enough to still call a friend today. This is her mother plant, a Limelight hydrangea that had grown into an absolute showstopper outside Shelia's Alabama home.
My friend Shelia’s mother plant.
The summer of 2023, before I packed up my life and moved north to Pennsylvania , I took a cutting. One stem, snipped with more hope than certainty, turned into three rooted cuttings. One I gave back to my friend Shelia, so a piece of her own plant would keep growing in her yard too. One didn't make it — not every cutting survives the journey. And one came north with me.
Arriving on the Ugly North Deck
In spring of 2024, that one small rooted cutting arrived in Pennsylvania, and was placed on my north deck — back when it was still just an ugly, bare stretch of boards, long before it became the hummingbird haven it is today. She sat in her little terracotta pot, a few tender leaves reaching for the sun, keeping company with a stone frog while she waited for her real home.
Shelia arrived in Pennsylvania. March 2024
It didn't take her long to find it. That same season, I moved her pot out into the bed to let her decide her final resting spot among the daylilies and mulch and another hydrangea. At that point, we didn’t know it was another limelight, but there she stayed.
Shelia’s forever home next to another hydrangea. April 2024
Her First Summer
By July of that very first summer, Shelia had already put out her first bloom — one small cone of green-white flowers on a plant barely out of its pot, standing in the shadow of a much larger, more established hydrangea nearby. It was a small thing, but it meant everything: she'd taken root, and she was here to stay.
Shelia’s first bloom. July 2024
Filling Out
Spring of 2025 rolled around, and Shelia had transformed. What started as a single stem in a 4-inch pot had become a full, healthy shrub, thick with green foliage and holding her own along the front walk.
Shelia as a full shrub. Spring 2025
Shelia Now
And now? She's not just holding her own — she's rivaling the very mother plant she came from. Loaded top to bottom with those enormous cone-shaped Limelight blooms, standing tall along the driveway, she's become everything her Alabama namesake always was.
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The Story Continues
And here's the part that really gets me: this summer, Shelia has babies of her own. I've taken cuttings from her — the same way I once took a cutting from her mother plant in Alabama — and they're rooting away right now under the grow lights in my basement propagation station.
Shelia’s cuttings rooting under the grow lights. Looks like one may be an over-acheiver like her mother.
Three years ago, Shelia was the baby in a little terracotta pot, deciding where she'd put down roots. Now she's the mother plant, passing the story forward again.
Why Heart Plants Matter
I have a handful of these Heart Plants scattered through my garden now — Star and Myrtle, cuttings of an Alabama Peggy Martin rose and crepe myrtle, and Shelia here by the front walk. They're not just plants I'm growing. They're proof that the people and places we love don't have to stay behind when we move on. We can bring pieces of them with us, root them in new soil, and watch them keep growing. We can also accumulate more heart plants as we go. I have a tree I call Jilly because it was an arbor day tree brought home from school by my granddaughter, Jill. Shelia was planted first and Jilly was the next plant I planted in my yard..
Sometimes I wonder, can love really make plants grow? Shelia, Star, Myrtle, and Jilly are all doing exceptionally well!
Do you have a Heart Plant of your own — something growing in your yard that carries a friend or a memory with it? I'd love to hear about it.
Bloom & Dwell is a garden-forward outdoor living blog by Regina, written from her York, Pennsylvania garden with one eye always on Alabama.