Grammy hydrangeas have their roots in Minnesota

If you were able to take your eyes off the stars strolling the red carpet at Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony — or possibly if you’re just really into gardening — you may have spotted some particularly lovely hydrangeas.

Avid gardeners might even have known, or at least suspected, that the hydrangeas were an extremely popular variety called Endless Summer.

What you might not know is that Endless Summer hydrangeas were developed right here in Minnesota by Bailey Nurseries, which has its headquarters just south of St. Paul in Newport.

But the flower has caught on elsewhere, and now it’s the most popular hydrangea in the world, according to Ryan McEnaney, Bailey’s marketing and communications manager. Since Bailey developed the variety in 2004, the company has sold 30 million of them, he said.

Hydrangeas are up there alongside roses as the most popular flowers to grow, he said, making Endless Summer among the world’s most popular flowers.

McEnaney is a member of the fifth generation of the family-run company, founded in 1905. Bailey supplies products for just about all the Minnesota nurseries you’ve ever heard of: Bachman’s, Wagners Greenhouses, the Home Depot, Tangletown Gardens and so on.

What makes Endless Summer stand out from typical hydrangeas is that it blooms every year with little effort by the gardener, McEnaney said.

Older varieties often don’t bloom annually, especially with Minnesota’s harsh winters, he said, although they can be coaxed with special treatment such as bloom-boosting fertilizer and just the right sunlight schedule (morning sun; afternoon shade) that hydrangeas prefer.

Endless Summer has “allowed people in cold climates like Minnesota to have these plants and not just look at a postcard of Cape Cod [Mass.] and dream and wish,” McEnaney said. Hydrangeas are particularly popular in Cape Cod, where climate and soil conditions are ideal for their growth.

Although Endless Summer might have landed a Grammys appearance on its beauty alone, it probably didn’t hurt that McEnaney formerly worked for a Los Angeles agency as a publicist for the stars. His clients included hip-hop artist Flavor Flav, actress Sarah Jessica Parker and singer-actress Ariana Grande.

Bailey’s hydrangeas other star appearances include set directions in three seasons of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” on Netflix, and as the official flower of the 2018 Super Bowl, hosted in Minneapolis.

The hydrangeas required some star treatment themselves ahead of their red carpet debut. They normally bloom in summer, so extra steps were required to fool the flowers into thinking it’s July.

“They need to go into a dormant state with cold weather to be able to flower the next season,” McEnaney said.

So Bailey sent some to Yamhill, Ore. (USDA rules prohibit shipping flowers directly from Minnesota to California.) There, the flowers were kept in a cooler under 40 degrees and to make them “think it was winter.”

In December, the hydrangeas were moved to a warmer place to wake them up, so they’d be ready to bloom in February.

The planters at the Grammys mixed three of the six colors in which Endless Summer hydrangeas are available. There was raspberry-colored Summer Crush and two bluish-purple flowers called BloomStruck and, appropriately enough for the occasion, Pop Star.

The hydrangeas on display were accompanied by cut flower arrangements, including dahlias and roses, created by Tu Bloom, a Chicago-based botanical artist and designer.