Hello Emmie, happy to help.

The photo is too blurry to tell. Is there a reason for needing to know the variety? If it's to know how to prune them, paniculata hydrangeas bloom on new stems so we recommend pruning in late winter or early spring. And you can cut them back hard if need be.

Let me know if there is something else you needed to know about your hydrangea. Or if you have other information about it like the blooms change to red later in the season or you have a clearer photo of the blooms and more photos showing how they look at different times of the growing season.

Good-luck!

Thanks for your response! Since my last email, I did more research and decided that the photo likely shows a "tardiva' hydrangea. I am looking for something just like it for my landscaping, however, I need a smaller variety, no more than 5' high. Do you know of any hydrangeas similar to, but smaller than, Tardiva? Things I like about Tardiva are the conical clusters, white flowers, and relatively less dense clusters of flowers. Any information would be helpful if this is something you are able to answer. 

Hello Emmie,

'Tardiva' is a named variety of the Hydrangea paniculata species. Sometimes a named variety of a plant will have 'nana' or some other nomenclature appended to its name to indicate it's a smaller version of the variety like Quick Fire and Little Quick Fire hydrangeas. I can write about paniculata hydrangeas and give you all kinds of information about them but I think you'll need to ask at your local nursery about whether there is a smaller version of the 'Tardiva' hydrangea. My search online did not yield any.

In case there isn't a sub shrub version, I recommend pruning to keep it within your height preference. 'Tardiva' blooms on the current season's growth so prune it in later winter or early spring. You could prune now and may still get blooms. The risk is that there may be no blooms this year if it's too late to prune. But have heart, they will bloom next year.

Good-luck!