Friday Fabulous Flower - Pink/Purple Lace

It was a tough pick for this week's FFF, but took Mrs. Phactor's advice.  You may get to see one of the other contenders later on.  This particular shrub is a variety of Hydrangea macrophylla generally referred to as a purple lace top.  It's very pretty in flower and we've seen some marvelous displays especially where you get to look down upon the top of the shrubs, and then of course there is the color. This is not one of our favorites though because it only flowers on old wood (last year's aerial shoots) and they generally do not survive the winter, so no flowers.  Think of this as a purple barometer of winter; if mild, you get purple.  So not reliable here in the upper Midwest, but our winters are getting milder.  Here the flowers are arrayed in a flat-headed corymb with the large tepaled attractive flowers around the outside and the smaller fertile flowers in the middle.  Our shrub is not the most robust, so these can be bigger and fuller.  Our soil pH is not very acid, so the flowers are not as blue-purple as they could be at a lower pH, so these are a bit pink.

Friday Fabulous Flower - Stoopid hydrangeas

Sorry about the brief hiatus in posting; travel and computer problems combined.  New equipment and installations and all that "it's so easy and 11 year old can do it", but you don't have an 11 year old problems.  However TPP seems to have emerged triumphant having done battle with the wireless network, printer, and CD drive.  Now just have to get backed up files back.
But first back to business as usual.  It's mid-October, the nights are getting cool, and it's about the time we can expect our first frost. The last and latest plant to flower, wolfbane (monk's hood), is just beginning to flower. Some bok choi and bibb lettuce remains in the garden. And look at this!  After a sparse early summer flowering, these stoopid hydrangeas sat there and looked green until mid-September and then they decide to burst (slowly) into flower.  It's quite a display, on 3 shrubs nearly 5 feet tall. The picture was taken yesterday, and if frosts hold off, this display could last several more weeks. It might be worth covering the shrubs is only a light frost is predicted. Not sure why the flowering stimulus was off kilter this year, but a stoopid yellow azalea is flowering also, so it will be a no-show next spring. Wonder if it will ever get back on schedule?

Friday Fabulous Flower - Purple Lacecap Hydrangea

Although everything is pretty thristy right about now (our area of the upper midwest is dry, dry, dry), the mild winter and early spring were to a few plants liking.  Never before have the hydrangeas looked so good.  And take if from the Phactor, this is unusual.  Hydrangeas don't like it here very much; our soil is too heavy and not acid enough, and our summers are too hot and dry.  The hot dry part has just arrived with June, about a month early, but until now the hydrangeas have just been great.  Several 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas clustered in the front garden have been stopping traffic of all sorts.  Even a snowbell hydrangea that got eaten off by rabbits over the winter has produced a big display.  Here's one of the less gaudy ones, a purple lacecap (Hydrangea serrata 'bluebird') and it's never looked like anything before, so it was on the short list of perform or get replaced.  This year will get it a reprieve although not a pardon. In this area hydrangeas tend to the pink end of the spectrum (high pH), but application of fertilizer for acid-loving plants has shifted flower colors to blue, so they are looking pretty good for this reason too.