Plant of the Week - Hydrangea

Hydrangea is a beautiful plant grown in many places and depending on type would make an excellent focal point for a commercial landscape. They come in a variety of colors (depending on soil conditions) and can even be grown in pots. These plants were introduced to the Azores, many years ago and, particularly on Faial, began to thrive. Faial is now known as the "blue island" due to the vast number of hydrangeas present on the island.

General Information
Hydrangea is a genus of 70–75 species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, the Himalayas, and Indonesia) and the Americas. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Japan, and Korea. Most are shrubs 1 to 3 meters tall, but some are small trees, and others lianas reaching up to 98 ft by climbing up trees. They can be either deciduous or evergreen, though the widely cultivated temperate species are all deciduous.

There are Species of plant in the related genus Schizophragma,that are also often known as hydrangeas. Schizophragma hydrangeoides and Hydrangea petiolaris are both commonly known as climbing hydrangeas.

There are two flower arrangements in hydrangeas. Mophead flowers are large round flowerheads resembling pom-poms or, as the name implies, the head of a mop. In contrast, lacecap flowers bear round, flat flower heads with a center core of subdued, fertile flowers surrounded by outer rings of showy, sterile flowers. The flowers of some rhododendrons can appear similar to those of some hydrangeas, but Rhododendron (including azalea) is in a different order.

Life Cycle
Hydrangea flowers are produced from early spring to late autumn; they grow in flowerheads (corymbs or panicles) at the ends of the stems. In many species, the flower heads contain two types of flowers, small fertile flowers in the middle of the flower head, and large, sterile bract-like flowers in a ring around the edge of each flower head. Other species have all the flowers sterile and of the same size.

Colors and Soil Acidity

In most species the flowers are white, but in some species (notably H. macrophylla), can be blue, red, pink, light purple, or dark purple. In these species the color is affected by soil pH. For H. macrophylla and H. serrata cultivars, the flower color can be determined by the relative acidity of the soil: an acidic soil (pH below 7), by the influence of sundry agents in the soil, such as alum or iron, will usually produce flower color closer to blue, whereas an alkaline soil (pH above 7) will produce pinker flowers. This is caused by a color change of the flower pigments in the presence of aluminium ions which can be taken up into hyperaccumulating plants

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