Cormaic's Garden - Plants

Garden Layout - Plants - Hydrangea
This is, I'm told by Bert-next-door, Hydrangea macrophylla, and has been in this spot, on the boundary between our two houses, more or less since the house was built in 1961. We did move it about 7 years ago, just to centralise it and give it a bit of new soil, and it's not something I want to have to do again. The rootball was incredibly dense and interwoven.
It gets pruned hard, to just above the lowest bud on each stem, every spring, and by the end of summer, is 1.5m high, with a diameter of 1.5m and is smothered with dozens of pale blue tinged with lilac archetypal mophead flowers. It's an invaluable shrub for the heavy clay and shade that dominate this part of the garden, and I wouldn't be without it. It's plain and boring after the frosts have killed off the flowers and foliage, but I've managed to underplant it with daffodils and irises, so that the dead period is limited to December and January.