Category: Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas and The Rainy, Cold Summer

Hydrangea bud
End of June Hydrangea Bud

It’s the end of June and in southwestern New Hampshire the hydrangea in my yard is full of buds. The bush is very full this year since I didn’t do any cutting back, but the overall color is not the dark green of the leaves you see in this photo. In fact the bush seems to be divided with part of the stems showing off dark greenery and the rest showing a lighter, less healthy looking green.

The disadvantage I have where I live is that this yard is not mine. I live in a duplex and the owner lives next to me. She goes out and fertilizes with something – seaweed I think – and so I have to be careful of what I add to the plant. I usually just keep it watered and see what happens. Last year the blooms were not as nicely colored as the year before and the flowers were also smaller.

This year is also the first time I have seen browning of the leaves. You can see it in my photo below. So I had to check on diseases of hydrangeas and found that they can get spots on the leaves.  However, that site didn’t say why or what to do about them. The leaves in some places, look like something is eating them.

As I have said, it’s not my yard and not my plant, so I’m not worrying too much about it. My landlady is not much of a gardener so I doubt that she even notices or cares. I’ll keep an eye on it and see what happens, but it might have something to do with the fact that we are having a rainy and cold spring and summer season this year. In fact, I have hardly been outside!

I’m looking out for the flowers. I hope they open before I move in July.

hydrangea shrub with light and dark leaves
Dark and Light Leaves and Brown Spots
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Baby Hydrangea In Second Year After Propagation

Hydrangea planting
New Plant - Second Year

Want to see my baby?  This little hydrangea bush was propagated from a large one.

Sometime in the summer of 2009 I noticed that the big, blue hydrangea plant in my front yard had a “baby” growing next to it. It didn’t have a bloom, so I dug it up and put it by the front steps.

**Note: I’ve since read that before digging up a new plant, first chop it from the “mother” plant and then leave it where it is for a while to let it get accustomed to growing on it’s own. After a month or so it’s safe to dig it up and it will be more ready for life out on it’s own!

Anyway, it is thriving and even has little buds showing this year. Last year, summer of 2010, it grew two long stalks, but no flowers. I was worried about it this winter with all the snow we had, but the brown stalks were still there once the snow was gone and leaves began to grown from it quickly. Besides new growth on the stalks, it is filling in with more stems and I look forward to seeing the flowers of course and am a bit curious what color they will be. I am thinking blue.

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Some of My Blue Flower Pictures

blue hydrangea flower
Blue Hydrangeas

If you are looking for blue flower pictures – I mean REAL blue flowers, today I am showing off some of mine.

How many times have you seen a purple flower listed as being blue. In the flower kingdom, this happens a lot and I think it is because there really aren’t that many true blue flowers.

It’s a popular color, especially for weddings – that “something blue” phrase can be taken care of with a blue bouquet or at least one blue flower in the mix.

Blue flowers are popular in the landscape too. The perennials that come in blue are certain types of hydrangea (pictured), such as the “Endless Summer” variety.  But soil must be acidic for flowers to be nice and blue.

I also love the forget-me-not, which sports tiny bright blue petals with yellow and white centers.

Forget Me Not Floral Photography Postage stampLots of gardeners include the blue delphinium that grows tall, and many like to have a morning glory vine grow along the deck railing or up the fencepost.  I have another page with more ♥ pictures of blue flowers you could grow in your garden.

Another flower I grow that is sometimes blue is the Columbine.  I love the variety of that plant and I’ve had light blue flowers, but the more common color is dark purple, as you can see in my photo below.  My images are not free to use, so please contact me if you want to use one, with a link back to my blog.

Blue Columbine Postcard postcard

The Cold Hardy Panicle Hydrangea

Panicle hydrangea (H. paniculata)
Image via Wikipedia

Hydrangeas are pretty hardy but if you want a larger one that will thrive in zone 4, choose the Panicle Hydrangea. The flowers on this species is a bit of a different.  I am used to the round, puffy flowers that grow on my shrub, which is of the Mophead variety,  but the Panicle hydrangea has flowers that grow to a long pointed shape – or panicle.

As you can see in the picture I have added from Wikipedia, the Panicle hydrangea also grows to be quite large. In fact if can be 15 feet tall so consider it to be more like a small, flowering tree.  The flowers can be a foot long or more!   The Oakleaf hydrangea grows similar looking flowers that are very long.  You can tell the difference between these two by the leaves on the Oakleaf that are shaped like…. oak leaves!

The flowers can be white or pink, but no blue on these larger varieties (as far as I know), but beautiful just the same.  This species – the Panicle – will tolerate lots of sun.  As it grows, trim out the lower branches and create a little tree of blooms.

Know the Secret to Decorating With Cut Hydrangeas

Hydrangea and lily bouquet
A Bright Arrangement of Garden Flowers

I always wondered if there was a secret to keeping hydrangea flowers fresh once they’ve been cut from the bush.  It seemed that sometimes my flowers would last a few days, but usually they would wilt quickly once I added them to a vase.

Hydrangeas have a sticky substance in the stem and once they are cut the goo blocks the stem and it can’t suck up the water as needed.  To keep hydrangeas fresh and make them last, if you are cutting them yourself, you must have a vase or bucket of water handy to put them in instantly when making the cuttings. Once you have your cuttings, take them inside and move the flowers from the bucket / vase to another container of HOT water and leave them for 10 minutes. This clears the inside of all that sticky stuff so the water will be able to travel up to the bloom. I have done this successfully and my hydrangeas did then last for days afterward.

If you are planning to use hydrangeas to decorate tables or as a centerpiece for a special event, be sure to cut them, and use the hot water method described above, as close to the event time as possible. If you have room in the refrigerator, keep them cool (in water) until needed.

If the bouquet is for decorating your home, be sure to change the water each day to keep the bouquet fresh.

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Hydrangeas Have Long Lasting Blooms

Blue flowers on a hydrangea shrub
Pretty Shades of Blue

One of the reasons I love hydrangeas, is the fact that the blooms last a long time.  Hydrangeas will grow in many areas of the country (U.S.) but they don’t like extreme heat and that is probably why I never saw a single hydrangea when I lived in Florida.  In fact I never knew much about them until I had beautiful bunches of bright blue flowers on the one growing in the front yard of my rental house.  That was when I knew that one day I would have one or ten bushes growing in my own yard some day.

If this was my own yard, I would have a yard journal full of notes from the previous year, but I don’t so I’ll have to say that the hydrangeas begin blooming as soon as they can. Usually in April enough of the snow has melted that I can at least see the bush, but so far this year all I see is small sections of two of the tallest stalks sticking up through the snow. But once the nice weather arrives, the plants waste no time in shooting forth leaves, new growth and buds.

Blue hydrangea flower and bud
Photo taken mid-July

The buds are beautiful, the blooms are beautiful, and even as the blooms fade and change colors, they are beautiful. In my area of New England the buds have appeared and are opening by June and the big flowers are popping out color during July and August. The photo above was taken in mid-July of 2009 which was my first summer living here. That was the year that the flowers were a bright and beautiful blue color.

Cut flower bouquet of hydrangeas
Late summer bouquet

By mid-to-late August the flowers have changed color and make interesting cut flower arrangements. The photo below was taken the end of last summer (2010) and as you can see they contain a variety of blues and purples.