Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Day 11 - Hydrangea

I have this hydrangea in my back yard - and while I'm not much of a gardener - it's special to me because it was my grandmother's. When we retired and moved back here most of her flowers were gone (stolen mostly) but there was the hydrangea in a really grown up area. Probably still there because it couldn't be seen from the road.
Chuck dug up part of it and we planted it in our back yard and it's been a happy camper - except for last year when it was so incredibly dry. Didn't have nearly as many blooms this year as in the past so I just took a photo of one of the blooms. It does better with water - and I'm not good about watering things.


I'm sure this plant is at least as old as I am - and possibly older. The color has always been this gorgeous blue - but I understand you can change the color of hydrangeas by changing the ph of the soil - way over my head!

4 comments:

Kat Simpson said...

iris, it's beautiful! great color. Having never lived in one place very long, i love the stories about plants handed down in the family :)

365DAYSINHEMETVALLEY said...

Beautiful flower -- beautiful color -- and love that you know the history of the plant.

Z-ville said...

We have a hydranga bush, too. They have such huge, lovely flowers. You're so lucky that your soil is "right" to get that blue color. I have to feed ours yearly with aluminum sulfide to make the soil more acidic -- if I don't do this, the flowers are white. As it is now, the flowers are a lilac color, rather than a deep purple or blue.

Carole and Chewy said...

I love blue hydrangeas - our house in Minnesota was surrounded by them. I've tried to get them to grow here, but they hate the clay soil I guess.

Yours is gorgeous!