Today was such a nice day for a bike ride, so I got on my bike and biked around my old hood, The West End. And I just happened to bike by this gorgeous hydrangea shrub. Look at the gradation of the color!! The beautiful shades of purple and pink! This is perfection. I stood there for a while and dreamed about what a beautiful bouquet I could make with these hydrangeas. I could pull a "cut and run" perhaps, but it's not my nature to do such thing, and plus, these hydrangeas were full of energy and life... they were soaking up the sun, breathing the fresh summer air, and were just happy to be there, I could tell.
When I was a child living in a suburb of Tokyo, I often stopped at a big shrub of hydrangeas on my way back from elementary school and collected poor little snails that were often found on the leaves. Hydrangeas, just like its name suggests, like water very much, and they signify the arrival of the rainy season in Japan. We believed that hydrangeas changed their color gradually from the beginning to end, but later I found out that it's actually the level of aluminum in the soil that controls the color of hydrangeas. So if they are transplanted, they change their color to match the soil's condition. Whenever I look at hydrangeas, they remind me of my childhood in warm and rainy Tokyo ...
They can be seen everywhere right now, so enjoy their beautiful blossoms while you can.
These cotton candy - no, hydrangeas arrived at Queensberry on Tuesday and became instantly popular with our customers. They are as big as my head (!) and have a lovely name, "Limelight". Unlike some of the hydrangeas, these limelight hydrangeas are strong and vibrant. It is beautiful by itself, or as a part of the arrangements. I later found out that Limelights are the award winning hydrangeas! (winner of the 2008 Royal Horticulture Society Award of Garden Merit, and the PHS Gold Medal Award etc.). 
