Monday, September 27, 2010

Hydrangea, the autumn palette


It was just a couple months ago that I wrote about the hydrangeas in our yard and showed you the brilliant, saturated colors of late summer. Now they are shifting to their autumn colors and I am smitten all over again. I cut these on Saturday and they stop me every time I walk through the living room and see them sitting there. The delicacy of that shading on each petal is artistry I aspire to. And the fact that each individual puff of blossoms develops its own little color scheme is genius. They really are my favorite flower, and those of you who commented on the earlier post about them being old-fashioned or "frumpy" flowers, well I think you are not looking at them the right way!

Hydrangeas dry beautifully and though the color changes some as they dry, they maintain a lot of beautiful, subtle color. One of the easiest ways to dry them is just to put them in water, as I have, upright in a vase and let the water slowly evaporate. The blossoms will also slowly dry. This works best when they are cut late in the season, like now, when the petals have become a bit leathery and less fragile than earlier in the season.

6 comments:

  1. I love Hydrangeas , next year my garden is going to be just Hydrangeas ,Lavender and roses , I also dry them .--cottonreel

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  2. I too love hydrangeas. They are tied with clematis for being my favs.

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  3. I can't remember -- have you already done hydrangea art? If not, you obviously have some good specimens to get you started. Their color range is quite impressive.

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  4. Love the tiny frog!

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  5. I'm inspired to do a little midnight commando gardening on my way home tonight. The blooms peaked a while back and I haven't really looked at what is left. Hope they don't have dogs.

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  6. When we were on our bicycle trip in Holland several years ago, we saw gorgeous hydrangeas!

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