The gentle pinks, blues and purples of hydrangeas are a soothing midsummer sight.
There are lots of hydrangeas, but the commonest garden species is the bigleaf, french or mophead hydrangea, Hydrangea macrophylla. It's so popular that there are more than 600 named cultivars.
Its flower heads can be either big round balls of massed petals - the mophead type - or a flat saucer of flowers, some of them very small - the lacecap type. Hydrangeas are out from November to March, and there are some spectacular plantings in Wanganui.
Typically, those pretty flowers are sterile, though there may be some fertile ones in the centre of the group.
The flowers can be white, pale pink, pink, purple, blue or pale blue. Their colour is influenced by soil acidity, with acid soil making blue or bluish flowers and alkaline soil making pink or pinkish flowers.