The Great Hydrangea Hunt of 2010

Earlier this year we had our house painted.  When the painters were done I looked at the mad side of the house and thought it needed something....

Something being a collection of shrubs with a large specimen right in the middle, in that big blank space.  So I thought about it and thought about it and finally made my decision.  A large white blooming panicle type hydrangea.  So I started looking.  Nope, not quickfire or pinky winky - no pink flowers.  Nope, not the pom-pom colors of endless summer.  Nope, not one cut into a standard (seriously?  trying to form a hydrangea into a small tree?).  And don't get me started on Limelight.  I like green flowers but they aren't show stoppers, they're get up close and personal flowers.  I wanted something to stand out against the green house.  No one seemed to have one.

Then...  Last week...  I was at a Big Box store picking up some supplies for the house and wandered through the garden center and there it was!  One white blooming hydrangea.  Size around 8 foot.  After all my looking at the local garden center this was the closest I had come to what I wanted - an old fashioned, large, shrubby, white-blooming hydrangea.

It was... Pee Wee.

Lousy name.

Ok.  So it isn't perfect.  I don't like the small size of the leaves.  This is not a good time to plant in New England.  Pot bound and the potting soil it was growing in was crap (so I washed away as much as I could).  But very cheap (half the price of the ones I'd been looking at at the local garden centers).  So I snatched it up, planted it with as much care as possible and I hope it will have enough time to put down roots before winter.

If not then come back next year for the Great Hydrangea Hunt of 2011.

Bonus mushroom photo (we finally got some rain!).

And since you've been good here's a bonus photo of gomphrena Fireworks.  Don't bother with this plant.  I planted about a dozen and while the bloom is nice it's tiny and there aren't enough of them to make up for their size.  For the cost (well, I started these from seed so for the amount of effort) you can get a much better showing of other annuals.