The Weekend Hydrangea Team

Remember the Weekend Hydrangea Team? Let’s check in on them, and see how they’re doing.

In hydrangeae, veritas… in motu?

During our July 4th meditation, we happened to mention that hydrangeas in New England were having a banner year, and even our Weekend Hydrangea Team had put in some excellent work. Now, even in New England, summer can be tough with too much sun, too little rain, too much heat, and so on. As an inveterate lover of winter, I fully understand this. So let’s have a look at the Weekend Team Hydrangea, and see how they’ve been keeping.

Here we see them in 2 views, 2024-Jul-04 at top and 2024-Aug-23 at bottom.

As you can see, there have been some major changes: the formerly blue hydrangeas have changed to dark mauve at the left, to bright pink with white center sprouts at the left.

No, this is not due to the left/right divide in American politics. (At least, not to my knowledge.) Hydrangeas, for whatever inscrutable evolutionary reason, change their color with the soil pH. Blue is diagnostic of acid soil, hence the mauve/purplish-gray on the left. Pink is diagnostic of alkaline soil, hence the pink and white on the right. (NB: Some people like to talk about the aluminum content in the soil. But at the bottom of it all, Al salts likely combine with water to form aluminum hydroxide, which is a base. Other people argue the other way. No, I will not get aluminum salts and lime to perform the pH/Al experiment.)

I like to think of them as boys and girls on Team Hydrangea, but the that’s just me. (The blue/pink thing is kind of an old gender stereotype. Of course, I’m old too, so that’s to be expected. I don’t think I’m offending the flowers by thinking that of them; with people, I’d be a good bit more cautious.)

More prosaically, they were planted at different times and may, for all I know, be slightly different varietals. But I think it’s the soil.

I guess I could have watered them a bit more, too.

The Weekend Conclusion

The Weekend Publisher (larger black senior cat) and the Assistant Weekend Publisher (smaller tabby junior cat) are shown here, viewing the hydrangeas from approximately the same place as the pictures were taken.

They’re in a post-wrestling pose, the wrestle having been won by the big guy as always. He is imposing some rough affection, or possibly dominance grooming, on his younger associate. The Assistant Weekend Publisher is still learning Proper Cat Manners.

I think they’ve pretty much got a grip on late New England summer.

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.)

Addendum 2024-Aug-24: Different Varietals

At dinner last night, the Weekend Editrix confirmed that the pink hydrangeas on the right are indeed of a different sort. (They were not in the July picture, so the comparison is a little bit too suggestive of color change.) The change in color from blue to purple to mauve on the left, though, is real.

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Notes & References

1: Nope.