Wild Hope Homestead

There are some rather lush looking bushes at the front of our property. No, not the weeds on that side, the hydrangeas on the other side of the driveway. They have responded to my winter pruning with leaps and bounds, which is a relief since it was a new task that I had to learn and I attacked them quite hard. In an orderly way of course. Look at them! So lush, so green. Anyway, gloating aside… The hydrangeas are flowering! Hydrangeas don’t often touch my heart with much fondness but I am delighted to have some flowers to look at right now. Their colours are also telling me something about the soil acidity. The hydrangeas along the side fence have ginormous purple-blue flowers with jagged edges. Their leaning towards blue tells me that the soil there is on the acidic side of the scale, but they aren’t super blue, so maybe it’s just slightly acidic, which is great for growing most things. The hydrangeas along the front fence are very pale blue/white, except for the one closest to the gate, which is has beautiful rich purple flowers with cream centres.

In addition to the large hydrangeas out the front I have two smaller ones. These two were very small when I pruned them and dug them out of the front path garden to make way for native grasses. To my horror, one of them was still growing in its tiny 5cm pot, with roots busting through it. I rescued it from its plastic prison and plonked both of them into the temporary bed along the side of the house. They too are now looking a lot bigger and are flowering. There’s something a bit different about these two though: they have striking, almost black stems. Uncle Google declares them to be Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Nigra’. The flowers have opened out a creamy colour edged in soft blue-purple, maturing to all soft blue-purple, slightly paler in the centres. They are rather nice really. I think it’s time to pick some flowers…