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Saturday 11 January 2014

Hydrangeas and micro climates

After living in a place for many years you do learn where the frost pockets are in your garden, and also the most sheltered spots. When I moved here I mistakenly planted my two new hydrangeas in a place where I thought they would be sheltered, at the bottom of my sloping garden near a thick Leylandii hedge for protection. Little did I know this would be the coldest part of the garden, particularly when the cold north or east winds blow down the slope in winter!

A look around where everyone else had situated their hydrangeas made me realise one thing - they were nearly all planted up against the walls of buildings. So I relocated mine up against a wall. They are now beginning to grow a bit bigger and whilst I don't always have many flowers (even after a mild winter where they don't appear to have been frosted), at least they are doing better than before.

However, talking of microclimates, there is a back street in my village where frost must be unheard of. I've passed this group of hydrangeas planted at the side and around the back of this house many a time. Even in late autumn they were still putting out new flowers! And here we are in January and they still have green leaves and have not been touched by frost at all. They look more like mine did about three months ago!

So armed with my compact camera one day last week I went to have a closer look and took some photos. In the first picture you can see leaves yellowing and dropping but this seems to be more from age than frost!


There were mixed pink and blue blooms on these plants and this faded blue bloom below is only just picking up a few autumnal brownish tinges!



Whereas this one looks almost like a new bloom!


Now compare with mine below - both are Mophead varieties. Mine lost all their leaves when we had minus 4C some time before Christmas, but the flowers were already faded and starting to skeletonise like you see below. I only had three flowers on this shrub last year whereas 2012 it was absolutely covered.


I also have a Lacecap variety which is easier to photograph and get in to take shots of the pretty petals.



Some are just pure lace now and so beautiful when you look at them up close.



Back to the village and a few fun photos not related to hydrangeas but why waste them. Just up the road from the hydrangeas I noticed this gate which had obviously seen better days (and paint jobs!) and had to have a closer inspection.


It wasn't hiding anything much behind except for grass and a few trees, but I was happy that I saw these dewy webs. I would have loved my dSLR and macro lens though with all the peeling paint, lichen and dewy webs - such photo ops! But overall I was pleased with my compact camera which only has autofocus so not always easy to focus on webs. Luckily I had the wood to focus on so that was close enough.


Nice to know there are still spiders about spinning away with the mild weather we are having!


14 comments:

  1. Interesting post; my Hydrangea flowers never skeletonise. Is that a feature of this particular flower or perhaps due to different climates?
    Great to see a bit of your village. What lovely old stone buildings!
    And you just can't beat a spiderweb with water droplets for a pretty sight! Nice shots, Mandy!

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    1. I don't know, Kim. I have both mophead and lacecap and they both do this. Someone in Germany said theirs didn't do it either and they would have a colder climate than I do! The buildings here are not very special - I don't have the prettiest of villages but they do look at bit better round the front of them rather than the back. But they are all built of granite which is the normal building material in Brittany. Thanks very much Kim. :-)

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  2. You're lucky those hydrangeas did not put you up against the wall for making them freeze Mandy! Normally they're very mean!
    What you don't know about that back street, Mandy, is that at night it's a red light district at night, so la chaleur accounts for the micro climate! (Red light districts are usually situated in back streets).

    Art for art's sake : I like your skeleton better than the flowery version in the back street!

    Looove those spider drop pictures, Mandy. By pocket camera you mean the Sony, and not the SX 50 I suppose? The SX 50 must have a manual focus setting...

    And finally : when I type SX50 into a google search box ... there's two mentions of you on the very first page! One from HQSP etc etc... and the other is one of your posts with even your profile pic on it!

    Thanks for yet another great time on you blog, dear Mandy!

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    1. You are a nutter Jan! The only red light in my village would be from a Christmas light and I haven't even been through there in the dark this year to see them!

      I prefer the skeleton petals too - there isn't a lot to photograph right now (especially macro) so it's fun to play with these.

      Yes the compact/pocket camera is my old Sony - easy to pop into a pocket! My SX50 does have a sort of manual focus but I couldn't get the hang of it because you don't move the lens around like a lens on a dslr, and that camera is hard to autofocus on something like a web, although it can be done.

      I've just googled SX50 and I see mention of me only once (my profile pic). Maybe it changes every time you google...

      Thanks very much for your comments and for visiting, Jan!

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  3. Splendid lace work, Mandy, on the Hydrangea and spider web fronts alike :-)))

    I love the vintage textures your flowers get at this time of year, and I'm glad you don't do like my mother and cut them (she's the "Off with their heads" type, I'm afraid, as she dislike their withered stage!)

    Your pictures are really delightful, as always :-)))

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    1. Noooo fancy cutting them off! You are supposed to keep them on over winter to protect the plant from frost. I don't really know how that works but I just do as I'm told! :-) They do still look pretty close up whereas a lot of other dead stems that were photogenic a month or so back are now a mess, so I'm going around clearing this stuff up for shredding, to add to the compost!

      Thanks very much Marie-Helene for your lovely comments. :-)

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    2. Oops, how did I miss your reply, Mandy? I'm supposed to get emails :-))))
      Update and apologies to my mother (although she won't know about this!), she didn't cut the flowers, I checked last Sunday. She said she would, hence my mistake, but apparently her gardener talked her out of if :-))))

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    3. Sometimes the Notify Me button doesn't work, or else you (or I, or anyone else) forgets to click on it! Glad to hear your mother has left her flowers on the shrubs. I hope you are going to take some photos of them now!

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  4. Oh those flower heads just look so delicate and beautiful. I always think that the mopheads have an even better lace effect at this time of year than the lacecaps. I dug out my mophead this year as it never produced more than 1 flower. Maybe I should have dug it in by the housewall too! Get back to that old gate with your macro lens - I loved those textures contrasting with the web :)

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    1. Hi Rosie - my mophead is the one which only had 3 flowers last year, but it's slightly more exposed to sun and frost than the other one. I've tried to put them in a shady position but they still get the sun from about 4pm in summer and the leaves can get scorched. Thankfully they are very near a water butt as they need so much watering - they are not easy plants!

      I will take another camera with me next time I go to the village..... :-) Cheers!

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  5. Ahhh hydrangeas!! One of my favorites... mine do not skeletonise either. Makes for great photos:) I agree with Jan and love the webs you captured there!

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    1. Hi Miss Lady Bug! Hydrangeas have such a long season of interest which is why I think I put up with them being difficult plants! One has a big leaf bud already opening up which I know will get frosted off sooner or later. Silly plants!
      Thanks very much my dear. :-)

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  6. I love Hydrangeas but rarely see them so your post was a treat! Very interesting about them skeletonising. I've never seen it but I've never been around them that long :-)

    So many other things going on I'm still not motivated to blog but maybe soon. Trying to catch up on blogs today!

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    1. Thanks once again Marianne. I doubt hydrangeas would like your climate!! They'd probably prefer indoors in air conditioning! :-)

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