Carolyne Roehm

Summer’s Bounty, August 2006 >> Hydrangeas

It seems my devotion to hydrangea as a cut flower must be tested. In the vase, the glorious, over-sized pompoms are capricious. One minute they are perky and the next–as if knowing they have been snipped from their true habitat–they wilt. Recutting the stems and submerging the flowers in a basin of cool water for a few hours can, in most cases, revive the blossoms. Constant watering is required to cope with their troublesome nature, but I will continue to love them, despite their faults, because they share the vase so well with a vast variety of flowers.

Breeders of Hydrangea macrophylla have been tempting me with a wide array of hybrid mopheads from the palest pastels to deepest cobalt blue. The fanciful blossoms of the double rose hydrangeas tipped with white are so large they could be mistaken for a fancy double pelargonium. In fact, hydrangeas are so fickle about color it is difficult to identify one variety from another since their shade is dependent on soil acidity. With this in mind, the hydrangeas for the bouquet recipes here should be motivated by color rather than named variety.



Amethyst glass vases impart deep purple tints to this collection of 10 heads of purple hydrangea and ten large garden dahlias (‘Ryan’). Mauve Australian scaevola and blue nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ were added for lightness and air.	Chartreuse zinnia ‘Envy,’ immature sedum ‘Autumn Joy,’ and rose hydrangea tipped in white are supported by a floral frog inside the pedestaled English porcelain vase.	Dahlia ‘L’Ancresse,’ deep blue-purple hydrangeas (such as ‘Nikko Blue’), white hydrangeas (such as ‘Madame Emile Mouillere’) and pale blue-white bicolor hydrangeas occupy a cylindrical blue-and-white Delft vase.

The color of hydrangeas is dependent upon the soil and growing zone. On the West coast, gardeners have a more alkaline soil, which tends to give hydrangea blooms a more pinkish hue. The acidic East Coast soil causes the flower to have a more bluish tinge. If you wish to try your thumb at changing the pH of your soil, keep these guidelines in mind: Aluminum sulphate or peat moss will add acidity to the soil and lime will help to sweeten or make acidic soil more alkaline.