Tag Archives: Gardens

nature, Photography

Colours

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There are so many beautiful colours at this time of year, and not just the gorgeous leaves.

I’ve been watching these bigleaf hydrangeas since May and have seen their glorious transformations throughout late spring, summer and autumn. They’re fading now, but what a beautiful gift they have been!

And then there are the vanilla fraise (strawberry vanilla) hydrangeas. Not nearly as dramatic as the bigleaf hydrangeas, but their beautiful metamorphosis from white to pink is equally glorious. The picture below from early September shows how they have changed.

Happy Saturday.

nature, Photography

October Third’s Friday Fleurday

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Over the course of the last four months, I’ve been watching an hydrangea shrub growing in one of the city’s parks that’s morphing from a variegated dark pink and white to blue and purplish-blue and lastly, to red. I first posted about it here.

June 23

As I indicated in my previous post about this hydrangea, one that shifts from red to purple, blue or purplish-blue and back to pink or red again is a “Bigleaf” hydrangea (hydrangea macrophylla) that is reacting to soil ph levels. This one has been putting on a particularly magnificent colour show all summer long that is now extending into autumn.

July 3
July 18
July 22
August 22
August 28

By the middle of September this shrub was well on its way to turning a dark, autumnal red as you can see below.

September 15
September 15

And as of October 2, those dark red hues were very predominant.

October 2
October 2
October 2

It’s amazing how beautifully this hydrangea shrub has changed and transformed and provided colourful blooms for months.

Happy Friday.

nature, Photography

September

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We’re half-way through September and only a week away from the official start of autumn. Time certainly flies and next we will be entering winter! But before we go there, we have lovely September and especially those couple of shoulder weeks between summer and autumn that can be so glorious and enjoyable. Here are some recent September scenes that epitomise that magnificent, almost perfect, couple of weeks.

The counterpoint of deep green ginkgo biloba leaves against a clear blue sky is a beautiful sight.
A sign of autumn: red leaves are appearing on the azalea shrubs.
Another sure sign of autumn: the goldenrain trees are getting ready to drop their rust-coloured seed pods; they are edible after roasting.
Autumn stillness and calm is reflected in a pond’s surface.

Happy Tuesday.

nature, Photography

September 5’s Friday Fleurday

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I posted about colour-shifting hydrangeas last week but since they’re so beautiful and in the middle of their annual costume change, I’m visiting the same topic yet again but this time regarding a different type of hydrangea.

June 23, 2025

An hydrangea that shifts from red to purple, blue or purplish-blue and back to pink or red again is a “Bigleaf” hydrangea that is reacting to soil ph levels. In one of the city parks there’s one of those; it puts on a magnificent colour show all summer long and well into autumn.

July 3, 2025

This hydrangea is not to be confused with the “Cardinal” hydrangea that blooms red and stays in that colour zone throughout the summer, though. I posted about that type of hydrangea a couple of years back.

Above and below are a series of pictures from this spring and summer showing its beautiful progression. All photos show the same hydrangea shrub.

July 18, 2025
July 22, 2025
August 18, 2025
August 22, 2025
August 22, 2025. As you can see from these last three photos, different parts of the same shrub were at different levels of transformation at the same time.
August 28, 2025.

When it completes its final metamorphosis back to red I’ll post more pictures of this beautifully variable hydrangea.

Happy Friday.