My Little Jewels

I hope you are not bored with my garden pics...I have to show off my "girls"...we have so many Hydrangeas in our garden. Our huge Gingko Tree shades so much of our garden in summer that they are the perfect plant. And I love them. love them. This is a current favorite. Oh, I hope you are not going to ask the name of it, I don't know! Most of the smaller plants I buy at Trader Joe's, have them in our home, and once they are done blooming, they get potted up by Mr. FGH and put in the garden.

I think I can honestly say I never met a Hydrangea I didn't like! I love them when they first bloom. I love them when they change over to their Fall colors. And I love them dried. We have big bunches of them on the top of our Silver Cabinet in our living room. The White ones especially, turn that great Chartreuse Green before Fall. And when they dry, they have that color. When they get really old, they turn shabby Cream, just perfect.

Another potted wonder, this time in Blue. To have the Hydrangeas stay blue, you can buy special Plant Food. Or, you can try this old time method and bury a rusty nail in the pot, or in the soil in your garden near your Hydrangea Bushes. Hydrangeas like morning sun. And lots of water, sometimes in the hot summer, ours are wilted, but a good drink and the evening cool will get them back to normal again.

Sometimes, these plants surprise you. This is a huge potted Hydrangea I received one year for Mother's Day. It was all White. And gorgeous. Now, five years later, surprise! (and no special food nor rusty nails, either) it has turned this beautiful Lavender Blue color, and what's more, each flower is a slightly different shade. They are a bit strange, but still beautiful. I'm sure that perfect gardeners or Hydrangea collectors might not appreciate that, but I do!

Same plant, see how the colors are all different?

Another TJ's special ~ these are called "star" Hydrangeas. I love them. The flowers are like little stars, and this is a different kind of plant, a Lace Cap. It has huge heads, with tiny little blue flowers, and then at the very edges, little White Starlike flowers.

Pink! It's a lovely one, and here you can see that this one is just starting to bloom. The hydrangeas all bloom at different times. They are supposed to have a "season" but ours pretty much bloom according to how much sun they get, and when they feel like it. :)

This is one I would love to have, it's called Macrophylla Opal. I don't think it works in my zone. But if you are in zone 5-8 S / 5-8 W, you can buy one here and let me know how it does.