Monday, January 28, 2008

Hydrangeas

Every summer, we talk about hydrangeas; if and how we like them, whether violet beats blue, how garden snobbery is futile.
But now, perhaps, they are at their most beautiful.

10 comments:

Jean said...

Yes, I love hydrangea blooms as they grow more fragile and papery and dissolve into old, crumbling lace. But my camera cannot do them justice.

apprentice said...

Yes they are lovely when the winter has bleached them. They were spectacular last summer, al the rain we had. In the Azores they use them for hedging!

Granny J said...

The lacy leaves and the bud close-up are smashing photographs.

Lee said...

You take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.

Unknown said...

I pruned my lacecaps today and they seemed to have taken on new life as a result of your photographs and observations. I did so with greater care than usual.

julie said...

Beautiful! Your buds are shooting up even faster than mine, I think.

Lucy said...

Thanks. They are such a part of the landscape here that one may as well get to like them, though of course the lacecaps are really much classier than the mobcaps. They also benefit from being in the shade, where the colours are much deeper and more subtle, and the plants generally more delicate. In full sun they remind me of the blue and pink bobbly ones in liquorice allsorts!

meggie said...

I love to see the new buds, the new growth.
Even nicer when seen against the old & spent.

Marly Youmans said...

I like these--especially to see when we are still tucked in snow!

And what did you gain (or what did you think that you gained--often one doesn't know until later, I find) from the two weeks?

Lucy said...

Meggie, yes, the two side by side are most striking.
Marly - hmm, still mulling that one over...