Hydrangea Hopes

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite things. I don't claim to be a good gardener, but when they are in full bloom, I'm so happy. We have three huge bushes of limelight, or maybe they are Annabelle, hydrangeas that have grown so well over the last nine years here. I bought them home from church one Easter, so maybe they are blessed, too? They bloom so nicely all summer and I can see them from the living room too, so it's nice indoors and out. I'm giving them away, there are so many! And the royal blue of neighbors' hydrangeas fills me with envy! (and I've seen a lot on my everyday walks!) I don't know what it is that reminds me of my childhood - that cool color of the sky in a flower - and that freshwater smell, although they don't smell as strong as they did when I was little. So this summer I decided to move two blue hydrangeas from the backyard to the front yard. I tested the soil and dug big holes and tried to make sure I had the right mix of compost and peat moss and aeration before I transplanted them. And for a while, they were doing okay - blooming in a paler blue and not as big and puffy and strong as they were last year, but doing okay. I prayed as I watered them each night. And then, they just died. I think they were literally scorched by the full sun they have now and the temperatures that are far above normal for this zone. So I sadly hung my head in defeat and went out to remove all the dark and drooping dead-heads to see if there could possibly be some way to bring them back to life. Any life left. And there was! The more I trimmed the dried brown crusty edged flowers, the more little bits of new green life I found! It was just beneath the surface. It gives me great hope that if these dead hydrangea, burned and done, have a little life in them, we have hope too.