Bloomstruck is the New Purple Hydrangea For 2014

purple hydrangea flowers
Bloomstruck is Purple

There is a new Endless Summer hydrangea variety and it’s purple, or violet.  It’s called Bloomstruck. I’ve added a link to the name so you can see a picture of the actual plant. My photo here is of a blue bloom which I turned purple in my graphic program. But it looks similar to how the Bloomstruck variety may appear.

Endless Summer is a popular type of hydrangea to grow as it blooms profusely. It’s small enough in size to put the plant into a pot, or find a good space in the yard to plant hydrangeas to add lots of beautiful color. For most people the Endless Summer plant means blue flowers. I have a bush that is only two years old and it has amazingly pretty blue flowers in summer. I also have the Blushing Bride variety which is white. But these macrophylla plants have flower colors that will change according to the type of soil – it’s pH- used to grow them. And that includes this new Bloomstruck variety. It is shown as violet / purple, but the site also says that the flower color could be “rose-pink” or “blue”.

I don’t think I will be adding this one to my yard as I have run out of places to put perennials and I have enough hydrangeas at the moment. If you decide to try this one out I’d love to hear how you like it.

I Want Some Dandelions!

dandelion seed head

In my area of the country (New Hampshire) there are no signs of spring, let alone dandelions! It’s mid-March and the temps have barely been out of the 20’s lately. A lot of snow still covers the ground and it’s frozen solid. Only the little melted circle over the septic tank gives me a view of brown earth. It’s one reason this blog has been stagnant – nothing much happening here!

But lately I am thinking a lot about dandelions. They are something people mostly consider to be an annoyance. Those white heads explode in the wind and spread their dreaded seeds all over the place. Even though my lawn is quite hideous, I usually dig up the dandelions and add them to a compost pile (when they are yellow, not white).

When I was a kid my dad once offered my sister and I a penny or nickel (can’t remember- it was the 60’s) for each one we picked from the yard. We happily ran all over our huge yard gathering the yellow flowers so they wouldn’t turn white and reproduce. I guess that is one way to remove them, and keep kids busy at the same time.

I’ve changed my outlook toward this yellow flowering weed. Why? Because I have been drinking dandelion tea from the health food store, over the winter, and it’s good. So I wondered if I could possibly make it myself. After searching online for advice, it appears it’s easy to DIY.


Apparently tea can be made from the flower, leaves and roots of the plant. The tea bags I bought are made from the root, and that is the part I think I need most. It’s good for the kidneys and I have recently been diagnosed with kidney disease. So I am very interested.


It will be a few months before dandelions begin to grow in my yard, but I am getting ready to try out some new tea recipes. This year I can’t wait to see those yellow flowers in my yard.
Once I do some experimenting with this, I will post my results, either here or on a new blog (which I am presently considering). But first the snow has to go away! One thing at a time.

Cats and Winter Don’t Mix

cat in christmas tree
Skittle Enjoying the Tree

The days are filled with bored house cats chasing each other and fighting. The nights bring scampering and sliding through the halls chasing mice. Winter is here! With snow and cold, my two cats don’t go outside much anymore. Skittle loves to roll in the sand all summer, but now she must be wondering how all that white stuff got here and where did her sand go? She has to find something else to occupy her tiny brain, and that something usually includes disturbing me.

When I’m trying to work, she is walking across the desk trying to mess up my typing. I have tape on a nearby windowsill trying to keep out the cold – and she eats it. This year I have an added sideshow with my daughter and her cat living here too. My cats don’t like her old man cat, which is added entertainment. One hisses, one growls, pounce, bat and off they go.

We have the big, artificial Christmas tree set up, but this year it has no lights or decorations. Last year I discovered that it was useless to try and have a nice looking tree. I only set it up this year because the kids wanted to, but it doesn’t contain a single ornament. Before we even finished putting it together, Skittle was racing up the branches with a wild look in her eyes.

I am writing this at 3am because they woke me up chasing a mouse.  I’ll bet you are thinking, “Hey, at least they are good for catching mice.”  Not quite. They run, bang into things and have fun for about 10 minutes – long enough for me to be up and wide awake wondering where the heck that mouse is going- and then they lose the mouse. Lucky for me I ordered new mouse traps last week and they will arrive tomorrow. But I’ll probably be asleep when they arrive.

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Garden Vegetables I Enjoyed This Summer

(My New Hampshire garden.)

Throughout the summer my garden produced some delicious vegetables and herbs for my family to enjoy. I have been picking basil for months, and now that it’s October, I can still go out and grab a handful. This year I used the flowers from my zucchini in some stir fry and omelets.  I found a recipe for stuffed squash flowers, but never had the time to try it.

garden vegetables and herbs
Fresh Pickin’s From The Garden

I mostly grow radishes for fun, as they are not one of my favorite things to eat, and the peas were not very abundant so I ate them raw in salads.

Parsley is one of the best new plants that I enjoy all summer and it’s good for my kidneys too, so I eat it as much as I can.  Even now, it’s still sending off stalks for me to use, but I know the deer will be munching on it soon.

I even bought a dehydrator and dried some parsley and basil.  The basil took forever, but I may try some more parsley before it’s gone.  My local organic grocer has fresh parsley available year round, so I won’t have to do without.

Summer is a busy time.  Between getting the gardens ready to plant, weeding and picking and cooking, there is not enough time in my day for blogging.  Things are calming down, and all the pictures I have been taking for the past four months will now be added to my blogs.

I hope your gardening kept you busy this summer too, eating good, fresh food and enjoying beautiful flowers.

Hydrangeas at The End of Summer

pinky winky hydrangea
End of Summer Pinky Winky

It’s hard to believe that it is the end of summer now. I recently took some photos of the flowers remaining in bloom in the yard, and the Pinky Winky is one of the hydrangeas that still looks good.

Although the many deer that frequent my yard come to eat hydrangea buds and leaves, my Pinky Winky shrub still has flowers. They started white then began to show some light pink, and ended up dark pink with some white at the top. Some of the flowers are totally pink.

I think I will try to shape my hydrangeas better before they start blooming next year. This one could end up being a tall tree with the flowers standing upright out of the reach of deer maybe. Pruning will be an experiment, and hopefully I won’t mess up the plant so it won’t bloom. This year I let all my hydrangeas grow “wild” in any way they chose. It’s only their second year in my yard, so I didn’t want to mess with them too much. The Limelight plants are really long and droopy, but have loads of very pretty flowers. Those would do better if they were trimmed for next spring.

A Blue and A Lavender Flower

flowering hydrangea shrub
Endless Summer – Year 2

Last summer I planted this Endless Summer hydrangea variety in my front yard. This year it is larger and has bigger flowers. All flowers are blue except one which began as lavender and is now pink. You can see it in my photo here, on the right, lower side of the plant.

I guess my issue with this macrophylla type of plant is that the flowers are often hidden by the big leaves.  It’s also called a “big leaf” hydrangea.

The one with big white flowers is also hiding the beautiful blooms. I hope that in time, as the plants age and get stronger stems, that the flowers will show up better.

The plants are nice and healthy looking so I expect improvement each summer. This type will only be around 4 feet across. They don’t get really huge, to my knowledge.