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.
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.
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.
