After my huge disappointment last year with my hydrangea, I was fully prepared to return to Kilbourne Grove and find horrible and wilty hydrangea. I had been reading people’s blogs, and they were all talking about how hot and dry the summer had been. No one is watering my garden while I am away (no one had been watering it when I lived in Toronto either), I am a firm believer in the sink or swim method. As a weekend gardener (and now long, long distance gardener), I cannot afford to coddle plants. So I was very prepared.
And very pleasantly surprised.
My ‘free’ hydrangeas are really settling into their space and starting to fill out.
Hard to believe that these were all ‘blue’ hydrangea at one time. I was a bit of a hydrangea snob, would not take the bright pink ones. Now they are all various shades of pink, and purple, not a blue to be seen. I now that you need acidic soil to keep them blue, which we do not have in Ontario, and I am actually starting to prefer these colours.
I love how the Allium christophii seed heads look with the hydrangea. I wish I had been there when they flowered, very curious how it looked.
You can also see some seed heads of Allium ‘Purple Sensation’, these have been planted a number of years, but I wanted to extend the Allium season by planting the christophii.
The Hakonechloa ’Aureola’ is just one of the variety of plants that I am testing at the base of the hydrangea. As you know, I have muscari planted there and when it finishes flowering I find it a bit tatty. Along with the Hakonechloa I am testing Nepeta, Hosta and Geranium ‘Rozanne’. The geranium was the first to go, I dug it up and moved the plants to the Allee in September. I love the plant, and it certainly flowers heavily, weaving its way through the hydrangea. Unfortunately it also weaves its way onto the path, and I prefer something a bit more tailored looking in this section of the garden. You can also see at the top of the photo the nepeta. Looking at at here, I am not feeling it, but I think I should give it another couple of years before I make a decision. See how messy the muscari seedheads get, must hide them. We shall see how the other plants make out over the next few years.
I am a floral designer living in a tiny condo in downtown Toronto, Canada's largest city. But on the weekend, I am a gardener/frustrated architect trying to keep up with a 3/4 acre garden in Owen Sound, Ontario, a warm (to Canadians, Zone 5b, and a cold (to Americans, Zone 4b) garden.
