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I love Hydrangeas. The mop-headed ones (Hydrangea macrophylla) are probably the most familiar, and these are very showy, with dark or light pink, white or blue flowers, depending on your soil. Acid soil produces wonderful blue flowers, whilst alkaline soil produces beautiful pink ones, even if the plant you bought was blue to start off with. However, these are not the only types available, and I have several different ones in the garden, all producing different sorts of flowers. Pictured below are Hydrangea macrophylla - always pink in my alkaline soil; Hydrangea arborescens "Annabelle", a wonderful plant with huge but refined creamy-white flower heads regardless of the type of soil it is planted in, and whose only drawback it its need for staking to supoort the weight of the flowers, and Hydrangea aspera "Villosa", with hairy stems and leaves, and lovely velvety purple heads which have the fertile flowers clustered in the centre, with the more showy sterile flowers (really bracts) around the outside.

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