Several weeks ago my sweetie & I went to a local garden center for gazanias. He happened upon them on year and we’ve loved them ever since. Gazanias are heliotropes so the full sun in the front of our home is perfect. I love the bright warm colors and they’re much hardier than the pansies we tried in full sun for a long time. It seems in our garden the pansies like more shade than sun.
When we got to the checkout with our flowers the cashier offered us one of several herbs that were not in great shape, the hydrangea was sitting in the middle of it with the purply/blue that I love about them. We asked about the hydrangea and she said that would be fine. So looking very sad and having a few flies we brought it home & my sweetie planted it right in the middle of the lawn. My sweetie has a way with plants and with a little effort he’s brought the hydrangea back to good health. Such good health in fact it’s blooming. And it’s blooming beautifully.
Here’s a photo of it planted. I’m not sure if he put the plant in the pot and planted the pot or if the pot doesn’t have a bottom and the pot is just for protection from the lawn mower & weed whacker.
The hydrangea is quite happy and is doing well. As I mentioned before when we got the plant the flowers were purply/blue and now not so much. The flowers now are this beautiful creamy white, with just a hint of green. Hmmn, I don’t know if this is from the “stress” of being replanted & treated or the flowers are really white. I know that the color of the flowers has a lot to do with the soil that it’s planted in so I’m thinking if the hydrangeas on the rest of the block are any indication they’ll return to either the purply blue or pink either later this year or sometime next year. We’ll just have to wait & see. In the meantime I’m thrilled to have this beautiful, happy plant that is flowering beautifully!
When I posted these pics on facebook Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero of Kaleidoscope Collections asked if she might be able to use one of the images to play with in her software. Yes! Yes! I said have fun.
She asked specifically for the photo with the spray of grass tipping into the flower bundle. I sent the image then asked if she’d like to have the raw (un-manipulated – I resized it) image to play with. Jeanie was thrilled to have that! Essentially Jeanie’s software was not limited by my original size limitations.
A little while later Jeanie sent me a series of images of the picture that she played with in her software.
and with the final image Jeanie created a potential quilt:
Pretty isn’t it. What beautiful patterns begin developing as you look round the quilt.
I can hardly wait to see what quilt Jeanie actually makes from these images! Create Jeanie Create!
Happy Quilting!
Teri
Love how creative you are!
But have to correct you – gazanias aren’t heliotropes. The only thing the two have in common is that they are plants – they don’t even belong to the same plant family. But both are quite beautiful!!!!
Your hydrangeas might turn blue as they age – but if they don’t, then it is very strange indeed that they would have been purple/blue when you bought them and are now white! You can change the purple to pink and pink to purple in you change the soil PH.
If you’ve never owned hydrangea before, let me give you an important tip – they bloom the next year on old wood (stems that grew the season before). So if the hydrangea gets big and you want to prune for shape, prune after it blooms to allow the wood to grow. Also prune out dead wood in the spring!
Plants I know – Quilting, I read your blog to learn!
Thanks Lou!
i’ll pass the information on care to my sweetie.
Happy quilting!
Teri
Love the Kaleidoscope pics!
This is why they say nature make the best quilts! Usually they are talking about color cues from nature but in this case, nature itself makes great motifs. What a great collaboration!
I’ve always been fascinated by the Kaleidoscope software — got to move that up on the wish list.