Hydrangea

Post 8

Sunday, March 31, 2013
3:58 pm

I don't know when my love of hydrangeas became so pervasive. I knew they were common, flowering late in the summer like clockwork. I knew that whenever I walked around the perimeter of our house, I could check on their progress, the coloring and the expression of their blues vibrant at any given time of day. I know I am now militant about watering them, prodding my mom to make sure to keep them wet, check to see if deer have been chewing their bright leaves when their foraging in the woods produces nothing quite as green.

I love hydrangea for their flexibility. Don't love pink petals? No problem--add acidiy to change them from bright pinks to blues. I’ve never liked the pink variety. The shade always seemed slightly unimpressive and suburban; someone might mistake my favorite flowers for nameless landscaping shrubs. A pink hydrangea plant seem ready for that most virulent of adjectives—common. Realistically, are the blue variety that much more unique? Could they actually be called risqué, fabulous, rum raisin to someone’s expectation of vanilla? Probably not. But the blue hydrangeas that have their roots next to the twin chimneys on the side of my house could never be mistaken for the choice of a landscaper who needed filler. They produce the kind of shocking, spectacular blue blooms that artists would squat before in plein air exercises, the blue claimed by men of royalty who wanted a color that spoke of majesty and power from which they could exclude all others. These hydrangea are shocking.

The ability to change is perhaps my favorite aspect of the flower. They can be manipulated while remaining true to their nature. They grow more beautiful in the eyes of the beholder but neither lose nor gain anything from their own selves. They are hardy and love the shade. They droop in direct sun but deep watering will perk up their large leaves. They bloom graciously in the day, unlike petulant tigerlillies, and their flowers can last for weeks. They are almost as beautiful dead as alive; dried, they are a bouquet that can last winter after winter, preserved in delicate bunches. They grow in groups on a single plant, but they do not compete with each other as roses seem to. They share and worship the sun together, exultant in each abundant head. Hydrangea seem common, but they are in deep demand at weddings and garden parties, easy to gather into thick arrangements that seem expensive even as they shun the precociousness of orchids and peonies. 

In the beds and perimeters of the house I grew up in, our hydrangea have thrived and flowered for nearly twenty years. The oldest of the two bushes are on the northwest side of the house, where they thrive in the moist soil that a leaky spigot provides for their deep roots. On occasional days in the summer, my mother will cut a few of the mopheads and gather them on the worn kitchen island, the most beautiful of blooms never cut for a simple bouquet, but left to dry naturally on their stems outside. Besides their beauty and the common sense of their growth, hydrangea are consistent with one specific word that, when I look at them, makes their beautiful flowers all the more precious. Hydrangeas mean home.