Hydrangeas Don't Have To Be Blue

 We're getting to the end of the heady blooming season for most gardens. All that really seems to be left are the hardy, and ever optimistic black-eyed-susans. In our garden the same is true, although some previous owner left us one botanical trump card, two stunning hydrangea trees. They're not really trees...in the classical/botanical sense of things, they're shrubs, but over the years somebody worked hard to prune them into beautiful fountaining tree shapes, and with very little care on my part they're the late-season garden stars.

 I love how amazing it feels to be underneath them, the world barely visible through the emerald umbrella the arching stems. They are perfect little dream-houses, wonderful places to play on hot days when the boys are scheming up a world of secret kingdoms.

The Latin name for these hydrangeas (in case you're interested in hunting one up for your own garden corner) is H. paniculata 'Grandiflora.' I love them for being such lush, spectacle bloomers (check out those blossoms as big as my head in the shots above!), their carefree nature, sweet scent, and the way my honeybees are drunkely stumbling all over themselves to get back and forth from the blooms to their hive. Some of my sources tell me that this hydrangea which is a garden plant over 150 years old is out of vogue, and has been overdone in many gardens. I say, baloney! You can't overdo the classic plants, and the only thing it could do to impress me more would be produce fruit. I'm a wild fan.

 The blossoms are positively humming with visitors, tiny butterflies, shimmering irridescent flies and of course the girls from our hive, I even saw a ladybug there, doubtless eating some less fortunate visitors.

I am thinking about trying to dry some of the blossoms this year and hoping for some kind of artful arrangement. I love the delicate, papery way they can end up, like a million tiny wings. See here, here and here for examples of what I'm dreaming of. I could do that, right?

Related articles

• Different Types of Hydrangea (homeandgardenideas.com)
• Flowers 101: Hydrangeas (casasugar.com)
• How to Dry Hydrangeas (homeandgardenideas.com)
• Hydrangea paniculata 'Great Star' (allandrewsplants.wordpress.com)
• Flowers That Bloom Later In Summer (mydecorarticles.com)

The Magnolia, And It's Guises

When we were in South Carolina last week.....Did I tell you that we went to South Carolina last week? We did. It was wonderful. Charleston is a beautiful town and I liked "The South" more than I thought I would although I'm still quite happy to be a Yankee girl.

We went down to visit my sister Lockbox. Isn't she cute? She's perky and be-curled and tans well and is generally four shades of darling.

Anyhow, all that to say....when we were in South Carolina, I had my first real encounter with the storied Southern Magnolia and I couldn't get over how striking it is. I feel like it's sort of an amazing Lego production...this stunning thing made out of all these curious parts. Check it out:

There's the breathtaking, (and scented I might add) blossoms and shining leaves....

 Then these funny centers that rise up out of the center of each blossom. Trippy, eh?

And the stamens which look exactly like a buch of strike anywhere matches scattered on the ground under the tree. I love the hilarious irony of that look-alike.

And then when the blossom finishes the petals fall and turn this beautiful fawn brown, and they look and feel exactly like suede leather! So crazy! A had to drag his wacky plant geek of a wife away from the tree. I could have looked at it for hours. I love the crazy bits of the outdoors.