A reward

There are many beautiful flowers which grow here in Charleston in summer.  One of the most beautiful and a favorite of mine is the magnificent hydrangea (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157624087989815).   We have them all over our garden, and in early summer they astonish me with their intricacy and color.  Some of these shrubs attain quite a large size, and a huge spread of blue and pink hydrangea in bloom is truly a delight to behold.

These plants don’t do well everywhere.   They need just the right amount of sun, shade and moisture, plus the soil conditions influence the shades of coloring on the flowers.   Years ago, the gardeners transplanted three small hydrangea bushes to the back side of the property on the other side of the garden wall.  Banished is more like it.  I am not sure why they decided to put them there, but for years they struggled along, hardly growing at all and never offering any flowers.   They were just surviving and would have long since died out had I not taken pity on them and hoisted the hose over the high wall on occasions when it was very dry, all during the past eight or nine summers.  I just could not let them die and so watered them faithfully, even when it was the last thing I felt like doing on a hot, humid afternoon and the mosquitoes were out in force.   This summer I was astonished to see two out of the three scraggly bushes produce flowers of extraordinary beauty.  I could hardly believe it.    One of them was a delicate lacecap hydrangea (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/4665254196/in/set-72157624087989815) like this one.

I took several photographs of the flowers at the peak of their bloom and this is one of those pictures: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/6183120057/in/photostream