Too cold and tired to go out today, half term was officially declared early and the boys went to decompress for a few hours. They look so exhausted, I wish I could just wrap them up in this morning’s rose-tinted sunrise and whisk them away somewhere without any worry or stress. It’s been a tough few weeks but I know I’ll look back on this era and be glad I got to spend more time with them while they still want cuddles.
Having finished my work too, I turned my mind to our evolving front garden and how to create more structure and interest through the year while keeping things simple. Lockdown emotion has me pining for rainbows, flowers in every shape, size and hue; longterm vision and editor’s instinct combined with a need to stop just jamming everything in wants to implement a more subdued, naturalistic foundation palette of soft greens, whites, purples and pinks – and then exercise my technicolour whimsy in pots, small experimental patches of border or as accents in between.
Having already woven in perennials such as echinacea, agastache, catmint, lemon balm, agapanthus, achillea, alliums, fennel, chives and foxgloves, among a base of evergreen and deciduous ferns, hellebores, Japanese anemones, lavender, rosemary and hopefully re-emerging Hakonechloa macra (please make it spring up in frothy masses of green this year), with snowdrops, irises, narcissi, crocuses, wood anemones and tulips hopefully popping up soon, my mind turned to larger woody shrubs, specifically hydrangeas.
For most of my adult life, certainly my twenties and thirties, I considered these late summer-autumn blooms old-fashioned, a dowager of a shrub. Then I started pressing them around ten years ago, just to see if I could flatten those huge globular heads in my large-scale herbarium press and the process of looking closer turned me around.
Instead of seeing each giant head as a showy soapy bloom, I began to engage with the anatomy of the plant: the smaller fertile bud-like flowers like those clustered together in the centre of lacecaps; the more extrovert sterile sepalled florets designed to attract pollinators, bred into abundance in cultivated mopheads; and a range of foliage depending on species or cultivar, from smooth to serrated to oak-leafed.
Lacecap hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla, a type of large leaf hydrangea) have varied coloured sepals on their outer whorl of ‘flowers’ (actually adapted leaves) and large clusters of fertile flowers in the centre of each head. The flattened shape is created by each peduncle (flower stem) rising up from different points on a main stem a bit like a candelabra; the colour of the sepals potentially changing in reaction to soil acidity/alkalinity and aluminium content. My favourite of these lacy numbers is a white one called Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Lanarth White’.
Most mountain hydrangeas (Hydrangea serrata), native to mountain woodlands of Japan and Korea, have similar but smaller flowerheads and leaves and are much hardier. ‘Bluebird’ is pretty, with fiery foliage in autumn, but the eponymous outer sepals may turn pink in more alkaline soils than ours – a feature called ‘antiquing’ that this species shares with non-white variants of Hydrangea macrophylla – or if you actively change the pH (less than 5.5 equals blue; above 5.5 equals pink).
Mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla; Hydrangea arborescens and a few Hydrangea serrata) are the most well known of these puffballs, with large spherical heads of mainly sterile flowers following years of cultivation for optimum all-round ‘bloom’. Depending on the species and cultivar you may find some fertile flowers under the showier ones: if you’re planting for pollinators choose the smoothleaved Hydrangea arborescens over H. macrophylla or H. serrata. H. arborescens ‘Annabelle’ or ‘Grandiflora’, deliver at least some food for the bees as well as spectacular white pompoms that make great cut and dried flowers. I also like H. Macrophylla ‘Zebra’, which has almost black stems and large green flowers and H. Macrophylla ‘Nikko Blue’, a French hydrangea that’s also lovely in cut and dried floral arrangements.
The hydrangea I’m veering towards the most, however, is Hydrangea paniculata, which can be deciduous or evergreen. The leaves are serrated and the flowers presented in large conical panicles in shades of green, white and pink, often two-tone as they bloom through the season. I love H. paniculata ‘Limelight’ (pale lime green to white to pink and green) and the more compact ‘Little Lime’ also known as ‘Jane’ but both are largely sterile. Plant ‘Grandiflora’ (creamy white to green) also known as ‘Pee Gee’, ‘Phantom’ (mainly lime-flushed white main turning deep pink with pale pink and white fertile florets) and ‘Pinky-Winky’ (lime to white to pink) for their beauty and the bees.
Oak-leafed hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) also has cone-shaped flowerheads – a sort of cross between a lacecap and H. paniculata comprising fertile and sterile flowers – but with oak-shaped leaves, which give wonderful red-orange autumn colour. There are also climbing hydrangeas (Hydrangea petiolaris), which may be good for training over the trellis in the back when we finally get that up. My folks have one grown over the remnants of an ivy ‘shiva lingam’ that my dad grew up the wall under my old bedroom window… but that’s another story! This one has numerous fertile flowers and is great for pollinators and roosting birds.
If you’re happy with the paler, creamier range of hydrangeas, it’s also worth looking at viburnums, some of which have similar flowers. Packed with nectar they transform into lush berries in autumn, providing a feast for a range of wildlife. Rose guelder (Viburnum opulus) has lacecap-like flowers, three-lobed leaves and bright red berries and is a great bird-friendly choice although watch out for mophead cultivars such as ‘Roseum’, which is sterile. Viburnum sargentii ‘Onondaga’ has a lacecap head, maple-like leaves and is also loved by butterflies. While Viburnum David (Viburnum davidii) has deep green elliptic leaves, small fertile white flowers and dark blue-black berries. For a mophead alternative, there’s also Chinese snowball (Viburnum macrocephalum), which has lovely white orbs, although this is sterile.
Needless this took me a lot longer to write then I planned and it’s now Saturday! At least I now have a shortlist: Hydrangea paniculata ‘Little Lime’ for it’s compact creamy-lime beauty and cut flowers; Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Nikko Blue’ for highlights of blue and antiqued winter wreath action (although I think we have a bush or two at the back that I might be able to move…); lacy-flowered Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Lanarth’ and rose guelder (Viburnum opulus) for the birds and the bees; and Hydrangea quercifolia for ivory cones and autumn foliage. Quite obviously my emotional lockdown head is still winning and I still need to narrow things down!