Meeting tonight: Caring for hydrangeas

Tonight is the June meeting of Crossroads Garden Club. Our speaker will be Matt Gaddis, one of our members who works at Pike Nurseries. He will be telling us how to care for hydrangeas. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm at 3072 Hwy. 154, Newnan.

Hydrangeas are one of the most popular perennial shrubs in southern gardens. They are beautiful with large showy flowers in beautiful colors. They are often used in flower arrangements and I have been to a number of weddings where hydrangeas were either carried by the bride or by her bridesmaids and graced the tables at the wedding receptions. You know when young brides love a flowering shrub to this extent that there is no danger of going our of favor and will certainly remain popular in landscapes.

My mother had a very pretty hydrangea when I was a small child and I was so fascinated because sometimes the flowers were blue and sometimes they were pink--just because of the amendments she added to the soil. This was fascinating to me.

Lately I have been given a few "pass-along" oak leaf hydrangeas and I am hoping they will grow and look beautiful like the photo above I used courtesy of Anne Norman on Wiki Commons. My oak leaf hydrangeas look kind of like little sticks with a few green leaves sticking out right now--and nothing like the one above. I am hoping to learn from Matt just how to give them the best care possible.

I also would like to add more hydrangeas to my landscape. I don't think there is anything better so I can't wait to see what Matt has to say. I will be taking some good notes and will report his tips for growing beautiful hydrangeas later in the week.