'They can't be spies. Look what she did with the hydrangeas!"
Surely no gardener has received a greater accolade. Frankly, when I saw this quote in the newspaper, I was more interested in the state of the hydrangeas than the state of the grower's politics and alleged spy activities in New Jersey. Were those hydrangeas mopheads or lacecaps? Did the gardener manipulate the pH and prune the old blooms? Did she cut the flowers for her neighbors? Where did she get those plants? Did she propagate? Were the blooms pink or blue? If pink, that might have been a sign about the politics, but probably more a question of the local soil's alkalinity. Just what was so special about those hydrangeas?
Hydrangeas seldom disappoint me. I've had an entire hedge of 'Nikko' mopheads that ranged in color from baby blue to deep indigo, depending upon how much sun they received in their place in the row.
They were prolific in spite of some wretched vine that persisted on twining itself in and around the hydrangea stems and in spite of my best weeding efforts. If my neighbor on the other side of the hydrangea hedge had been equally diligent about weeding, there would have been less of a problem, I generally muttered while working my way through the bushes trying to find the vine's origins.
I still mourn the two white oakleaf hydrangeas that were just establishing themselves on the side of my house when a tulip poplar smashed them beyond recovery. The tree crashed down and drove itself into them, with assistance from Hurricane Fran.
My only real hydrangea disappointment came with the dwarf Hornli mopheads. The catalog promised a bright red bloom no matter the soil, but all I ever got was a sickly gray, somewhere between pukey white and leaden blue. I passed the plant on to another gardener with greater sun. (Gardeners pass on more plants than mourners bring casseroles.) When last heard of, the Hornli was in full bloom - but definitely blue.
They only want to grow
Is faith in gardeners, as expressed by the purported Russian spy's neighbor, misplaced? Probably not. Gardeners' sole objective seems to be to beautify and/or feed the world. With this as an objective, they face heart-stopping heat, drenching humidity, toe-tingling winters, leaf munching beetles, wandering lawn mowers, breathless drought and destructive storms. They are armed with little more than their spades, trowels, pruners, occasional spray, slow-release fertilizer, sun hats and, most important, their patience and optimism that their plants will endure, or at least come back with careful nurturing when some pestilence strikes.
"If you can't talk to your plants, who can you talk to?" I ask as I ease a potential transplant out of its resting place. "Come on, dearie. I'm going to put you in a much nicer space - less crowded with nice, nice soil." I wonder who is going to talk to those New Jersey hydrangeas now? Will they transplant?
Linda De Grand is a former master gardener who gardens in downtown Raleigh.
