Hello all! I am new here... :) Each year, my grandmother travels quite a bit, and I take up garden-watering duties. The past few years, I've noticed a large plant stuck in a corner gradually look more and more sad. This year I finally asked my grandmother about it, and she said it was there when she moved in to her house nearly 7 years ago! She doesn't know what it is either, and seemed to think it is some species of hydrangea...? Possibly a climbing variety...? We both live in Puyallup, WA, and with the increasing heat over the years during the summer, I fear the direct sunshine + a badly root-bound container are slowly killing the poor thing! Here are some pics: (NOTE: the bark is extremely peely)
Doesn't it look like Hydrangea petiolaris (Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris), peeling bark and all? The leaf colour would be from the unfortunate conditions you described.
I thought it looked like that too. A good climber for a shady area, does well on north or north-east facing walls in the UK. This one definitely needs some TLC.
Looks like an albino. Replant in bigger pot with fresh soil containing fertilizer or add fertilizer afterward, see if that greens it up. Or move on to a planting position in the ground, will grow as a mound if support not nearby. White leaves are burning so it will need a full shade location, at least for as long as it is partly white - if it actually happens to have sported to an albino it may stay partly white indefinitely. Otherwise it would be assumed it has a chemical-related problem - that either it is affected by exposure to something that made it grow partly white or the potting soil is leached out and lacks a mineral (or minerals) the hydrangea needs more of to grow normally.
