I wrote a little while ago about how my plants had decided that summer was upon them, weeks before summer beckoned on the calendar: the cymbidium orchids went into summer dormancy, and the hydrangea (which flourishes in mid-summer) sent up gigantic flower stalks, quickly crowned by green flower buds that will turn to bright pink.
Today (June 4th) was indisputably, quite suddenly, a high summer day, with a high temperature of just over 90F. The hydrangea is loving it. Alarmingly.
A snapshot from this afternoon:
The plant is two or three times its size in previous years. The three central flower stalks are still growing; they’re over two feet tall (in their pot, they come up to my shoulder) and have not yet put out flower heads.
Meanwhile, it’s got a pile of flower heads, at various stages of maturation. The florets are completely green at first, and then their mature color — pink in my aluminum-poor soil — spreads through the flower head, as you can see in the photo. Fabulous.
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