Sandy's Garden ... In the Pink

Where … paradoxically … warm shades of reds and pinks are ever-more noticeable while cooler blues and greens fade into the background. In part, this is down to me, for regular readers may recall that, in late spring, I admitted that, when I was planting out bedding plants, I overdid the amount of bone meal I added to the soil. I recall the words of my confession. “In a culinary metaphor, I over-egged the pudding and my young plants paid the penalty.

Their young, tender roots were planted in excessively phosphorous-rich compost. Belatedly, I have confirmed via an internet advice column: ‘Excess phosphorus has several undesirable effects. It has been shown to interfere with a plant's absorption of iron, manganese and zinc, resulting in yellowing of the leaves and poor health of the plant. So, before using bone meal or a high phosphorous fertiliser, do a soil test.’”

Well, time is a great healer; and, with the passage of time, the excess phosphorus in the soil was dissipated and the young plants which had survived their ordeal … most of them … gradually recovered their health and strength.

However, they were now lagging behind their intended developmental time-scale; and an almost total and welcome absence of frost has meant that, until a few days ago, I was still enjoying the sight of innumerable geraniums in glorious bloom, their many shades of reds and pinks brightening up even the gloomiest of recent wet days.

True, the petunias had gone, as had the New Guinea busy lizzies: but the sedum has changed from summer green to autumnal deep red, several acers are displaying vibrant gold foliage and my rowan tree … planted to keep witches and evil spirits away from my home … is ablaze with brilliant red berries, so numerous that the surrounding ground is covered by a veritable carpet of these fruits. If there is any truth in the age-old belief that this presages a hard winter, then start making appropriate arrangements to hibernate right now!

But the star of the show, as seen from the windows to the back of the house, remains a seriously large hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’, whose masses of large, conical, flowers are now bi-coloured as the original white colour gradually changes to pink, spreading from the base of the flower to its tips. This single shrub totally dominates its part of the garden, demanding that the viewer pay attention to it.

I must admit that I have long lost any record of its precise variety … quite a number share this colour-changing trait … but, as I have written in the past, I garden for pleasure and not as some form of serious study, so maintaining detailed records of what is planted where is not a priority. Yes, the flowers are now much more pink than white; but it still totally eye-catching and still a pleasure to behold.

This particular hydrangea almost certainly came from a local garden centre, which no doubt bought it from a specialist nursery. But its ancestors came originally from South-East Asia, for they are native to the Himalayas, Central and Western China.

The shrub, I read in a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Plant Trials Bulletin written in 2008 by Neil Lancaster and Wendy Wesley, “was first described and named in 1829 by the German physician and botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold while working for the Dutch East India Company based on Deshima Island within Nagasaki harbour, Japan.”

This cultivar seems to have been first brought to the UK in 1908 by the English plant collector Ernest Wilson, to whom today’s gardeners owe a great debt of gratitude for the innumerable now-popular Asiatic species he introduced here. And, like many of ‘Chinese’ Wilson’s introductions, my showy hydrangea paniculata is perfectly happy living in Central Scotland.

Thank you, Ernest!