In Afrikaans Hydrangeas are called ‘Christmas Roses’. After many weeks of promise they now swell into maturity. I could have kept this subject for the Christmas week, but that is also the week for wild flowers, and so my Christmas post will feature wild flowers in the garden instead. You can rest assured though – this week’s hydrangea flower will still be there by Christmas… in fact it might even still be there, burnished and patinaed, by Easter…
The top photo is the sight that currently greets me outside my bathroom window – a mauve Hydrangea macrophylla backed by a purple Buddleja davidii . Many of our hydrangeas are magnificent shades of blue because of our acid soil – pink hydrangeas take extra effort! The photo above is of Hydrangea serrata in the Rondel Garden, surrounded by Tradescantia in various shades of blue, mauve and white. It is a combination I intend repeating in the shade in the Long Border near the new visitors’ parking area.
Possibly my most successful use of hydrangeas is in the cutting through the poplars at the end of the Beech Border axis. One comes upon them suddenly when walking along the road on the opposite side of the valley, and look across them up to the seat under the beech. I wrote about that part of the garden here, and last summer I wrote extensively on hydrangeas here and here.
They are all so beautiful!
Wildflower Wednesday for Gail will be on the 22nd. See you there this month?
Beautiful Hydrangeas – I love the blue!
Oh my! What a treat that mass of hydrangeas is. Thanks for providing summer to warm up my cold, white winter world.