|
Collection on Myrtle Way by araucarias and children's playground
on the Cable Car to City downhill route.
The name Hydrangea is Greek, meaning “water vessel”. It is derived from the shape of its
seed capsule.
This diverse group of plants contains roughly 7-45 different species with some 600 named hybrids. This group consists
of hardy and tender shrubs and woody climbers. They are mostly deciduous plants, though a few of the tender species
are evergreen. They are natives of the Himalayas, North and South America, and central and eastern Asia.
These flowering shrubs have different flower forms - from the large globes of the "mopheads"
to the discs of the "lacecaps" to the thick cones of oakleaf and panicle hydrangeas. They come in an
array of colours from pure white to brilliant crimson, pale lilac to intense azure. Some varieties produce blossoms
 |
|
Hydrangea Mathilda Guiges
|
with two-toned colours, while some flowers have contrasting eyes, and some may even be speckled or striped with
another colour.
There are two kinds of florets in the flower heads. The sterile or ray florets are male and form the large, colourful
sepals on the outside of the flower head. The fertile or perfect florets are small and inconspicuous. They bear
the male and female parts and are usually found in the centre of the cluster.
There are four different kinds of hydrangea: big leaf, oak leaf, panicle, and smooth.
Hydrangea macrophylla
 |
|
Hydrangea macrophylla
|
The bigleaf hydrangea is the shrub that comes to most people’s minds when they hear someone say “hydrangea.” Theflowers
of Hydrangea macrophylla can be blue or pink or some
shade in between, such as lilac or purple.
Hydrangea macrophylla grows more than eighteen inches
annually, reaching a mature height of five feet and mature spread of five feet. There are two kinds of flowers.
The hortensias, or mophead, hydrangea has large, rounded flower heads.
 |
|
Lacecap hydrangea
|
The lacecaps have flatter heads made of showy sterile flowers in a ring around a center of fertile, bead-like flowers.
The flowers will be blue when grown in acid soil, pink when grown in alkaline soil. Adding aluminum sulfate will
lower the pH of the soil; adding dolomitic lime will raise the pH.
There are other varieties which can also be found.
|
