Beyond the border

HYDRANGEAS: They’re back in fashion, and there are plenty of shapes and shades to put a new spin on an old favourite.

They used to be one of the most popular of all flowering garden shrubs – reliable, colourful, easy to grow. They were the familiar face in many a Victorian garden, often grown by the front gate where they acted like welcoming sentinels.

They continued to be fashionable favourites until well after the Second World War, but it couldn’t last and hydrangeas fell out of favour. They were considered old fashioned, strait-laced, unworthy of a place in the modern garden.

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And now, of course, it’s turned full circle and hydrangeas are selling in their thousands, but this time more as container plants than permanent border fixtures. Most people can recognise a hydrangea; well, the Mopheads (Hortensias) at least. They are the most commonly seen, with their great, round flowerheads which usually start to appear in July and which continue well into September.

They are very British – you can grow them in white, red or blue, but the colour depends on the acidity or alkalinity of the soil; acid gives red, alkaline gives blue.

Fewer people will recognise the Lacecaps with their flat central flowers surrounded by a ring of larger blooms.

And as for the daddy of them all, H paniculata ‘Grandiflora’, well, it’s more like a shrub topped with flowery ice-cream cones – a stunning shrub for the late summer garden.

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Hydrangeas like a fertile soil which is well-drained but moisture-retentive and although they aren’t adverse to full sun, they do appreciate a bit of shade.

The big blooms of the Mopheads are ideal for flower-arranging, but it’s best to leave their dried carcasses on the shrub until spring – cut them off in the autumn and they won’t be around to protect the shrub from potentially damaging frosts.

The hydrangea border above is in a sea-front municipal garden in Filey, Not only is it an innovative way to display these endearing plants, but it also shows that they are happy to grow in salt-laden air.

From H aspera ‘Anthony Bullivant’ to H sargentianum, to H involucrate ‘Hortensis’ and H macrophylla ‘Geoffrey Chadbund’ to H serrata ‘Bluebird’, H macrophylla ‘Endless Summer Blue’ to H arborescens ‘Annabelle’ and H serrata ‘Preziosa’, the Filey garden has dozens of varieties providing many weeks of colour.Hopefully it will encourage more people to grow a hydrangea or two.

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