Tag Archive for: tuxedo hydrangeas

Hydrangeas are ready-made bouquets

hydrangeas are ready-made bouquets
A ready-made bouquet in one plant: this is Hydrangea Tuxedo® Purple in the lace cap form.

If we’re honest, there is a teeniest bit of greed underlying our love of the hydrangea. Think about it. It’s like we don’t just get one flower when we cut a hydrangea blossom to take indoors, we get a whole bunch of little florets held together in a ready-made bouquet. It’s the best of both worlds – a big showy blossom on one level, but when you look closely, you’ve a fistful of hundreds of small but perfect mini flowers. (And yes, if we get all technical and listen to the botanists, these flowers are technically modified leaves, but it doesn’t matter to most of us because they look like flowers.) To celebrate the hydrangea, let’s take a look at these lovelies:

1.The classic mop head: this is the hydrangea we usually think of with its clouds of cheer-leading pom poms. But this one is better than any hydrangea bush we may remember from our grandmothers’ gardens because this Tuxedo® Hydrangea in red doesn’t grow into a rangy beast, it has been bred tough and is rarely affected by pests or disease. Best of all, its dark foliage is flushed with purple and black.

hydrangeas are ready-made bouquets

2. A blue punch: any gardener appreciates a good blue flower which makes this hydrangea worth its place in a pot by the back door or planted out under deciduous trees. It’s one of the gift hydrangeas and it’s called Blueberries and Cream™, which makes a lot of sense when you look at it up close because its lace cap form is made up of cream-coloured buds surrounded by those brilliant blue fully opened flowers. Pretty enough to eat.

hydrangeas are ready-made bouquets

3. A gift in a pot grows into a garden dream: the thing about Gift Hydrangeas Blueberries and Cream™, and Strawberries and Cream®, they start life looking very lovely indeed in a pot that’s the right size to hand to your mum on her birthday – a neat mound of foliage, covered in blooms. Better still, when your mum has enjoyed having it sit on the kitchen table for a week or so, she can then take it outside to plant into the garden where it won’t take long at all to grow into a sizeable shrub which will put on a flower show year after year. A gift that keeps on giving.

hydrangeas are ready-made bouquets

4. A sophisticated Tuxedo: yes hydrangeas had a reputation in the past for being romantic old-word garden plants. And then Tuxedo® Hydrangeas arrived and everything was turned upside down by their extraordinary foliage tinged with purple and black. The flowers are everything you’d hope for: luscious mop heads or lace caps in red, pink or purple. And the latest addition to the family, hydrangea Tuxedo Black Tie, has the inkiest foliage of them all (see below). Whichever you pick, they open up opportunities for creating contemporary bold massed plantings or dressing high focus settings like atriums or courtyards.

Be Impulsive – Grab your Tuxedo hydrangea

be impulsive
This astonishingly lovely hydrangea is Tuxedo® Purple with inky dark foliage and lace cap flowers (which also come in the full mop head form if that’s your preferred thing).

Here’s something we’ve all done – been impulsive and brought a plant home from the garden centre. It was sitting there looking very special and before you know it, you’ve decided to treat yourself. Home it comes… to brighten your day, or week or, if you’ve hit the jackpot, you have years of loveliness to look forward to. And if you happen to spot a Tuxedo® hydrangea to bring home, you will have years of joy ahead. For these reasons…

1. It has inky black leaves. Hence its name. The foliage takes equal billing to the flowers which is a major bonus because it looks very, very good both before it flowers as well as afterwards. Depending on the light levels where you grow your Tuxedo hydrangea, the leaves will vary in how much black and green you get, and if you want the darkest option, look for Tuxedo Black Tie.

This is Hydrangea Tuxedo® Black Tie early in the season before it has put on its red flower show. There is a hint of green in the veins of the leaves but the foliage is unquestionably dark.

2. Tuxedo hydrangea’s flowers are in your face. In a good way of course. They come in both hydrangea flower formats: the mop head or the lace cap where the central bracts are held in tightly closed buds. They are large. They come in gorgeous colours – hot pink, red and purple. And they are produced from early spring.

be impulsive
Here’s the easiest way to see what mop head and lace cap look like. These are both Pink Tuxedo® hydrangeas – the one above is a mop head and below is a lace cap.

3. This is a neat and healthy hydrangea. Tuxedo® hydrangea knows how to behave and will never grow into a tall, gangly, rangy beast. Instead, it forms a dense mound of foliage and flowers around three feet high and across. Hydrangea Tuxedo has also been bred so that it’s rarely affected by pests or diseases. So by being impulsive you are rewarded in a big way!

4 reasons to plant hydrangeas

hydrangeas are it
Hydrangeas bring a lot to the garden: this explosion of colour and texture is the lacecap form of the inky foliaged Tuxedo® Red.

How does a random plant – like the hydrangea – suddenly leap out of last century to become the It plant? (If you don’t believe us, visit Pinterest.) Yup – Hydrangeas have definitely moved on from being a granny-garden relic to being über popular and here are 4 reasons to plant hydrangeas…

1. Hydrangeas look lush. Just looking at them makes you feel like you’re being pampered. Their foliage is ample and the flowers are over-the-top. As a plant they somehow exude generosity, opulence, luxury. No wonder we want them: after all we’ve just come out of a few years tight with uncertainty and risk. Having a hydrangea in the garden, in a pot on the balcony or in a vase on the table: it’s a treat we all deserve.

hydrangeas are it
Anyone can arrange hydrangeas and make them look effortlessly chic, just grab a vintage glass vase and add in some greenery. Tip: use a mix of different aged flower heads for greater texture and colour.

2. They have brilliant flowers. Anyone with a vase of fresh flowers wants them to last as long as possible. That’s definitely on the agenda if you’re buying them from the florist, but it also makes sense if you’re growing them yourself. Which is why choosing garden plants with great cut-flower staying power is something to think about. Hydrangeas are legendary when it comes to vase-life longevity. You cut them, plunge their stems into a vase of water and then leave them be. The water will eventually evaporate and you’ll be left with a dried arrangement that’s doesn’t quite have the living loveliness of the early days, but is very special in a different, still-life sort of way.

This is one of the Gift Hydrangeas and it’s called Blueberries & Cream™ because that’s just what the flowers look like. You’ll see it looking this good even in a small container ready to be gift wrapped: plant it out into the garden later and it grows into a decent-sized shrub, covered in flowers.

3. Hydrangeas look romantic, (and we all love a bit of that). Hydrangeas and Regency era romances seem to go together: it’s probably the ruffles looking like a hydrangea bush in flower. All that lace at the hero’s throat and flounces on the bonnets of the heroine. (No wonder the two types of flower form are known as the lace cap and the mophead: one has a combination of opened and unopened florets and the other is a fully opened ball.)

4. They are easy to grow. Any plant that is easy to grow soon becomes popular. If anyone can pop one in the ground, water it, then stand back and watch it turn into something wonderful, well that’s a winner. And before someone says they need too much water, remember that we’re very water savvy these days. We know how to group the plants together that want more frequent drinks. That way we put the water where it’s appreciated and don’t waste it. And if you plant hydrangea varieties like Tuxedo®, Strawberries & Cream® or Blueberries & Cream™ you’ll be growing plants that like a bit of water to get established but from then on, a little will go a long way.

A mop top in full splendour: Hydrangea Tuxedo® Pink livens up a dark garden sideway.

3 flowers for your spring garden

3 flowers for your spring garden
A glorious pink mophead, this hydrangea is called Tuxedo® which is easily spotted thanks to its inky foliage. Buy it as a living bouquet in a pot: plant it in the garden and it grows like magic into a three foot high shrub.

Hooray! We’ve turned the cold-weather corner! We’re standing in the spring sunshine! Can you feel your heart skip a beat – in a good way? Yup – it’s that time of year when the garden magic happens, and here are 3 flowers for your spring garden…

1. The magician’s bouquet: first, walk into your nearest garden centre where you’ll spot some seriously good-looking Hydrangeas called Tuxedo®. There they’ll be, sitting in their pots picture-perfect, ready to be gift wrapped and carried out the door like a bunch of florist’s flowers. You could give them to someone, but this time, treat yourself instead. Take your Tuxedo hydrangea home and pop that glorious living bouquet smack in the middle of the coffee table, or on your desk, or beside the front door and enjoy it. Then, to make the garden magic happen, a few weeks on, take Tuxedo hydrangea outside and plant it into a large container or out into the garden itself. Then stand back because it will quickly grow into a glorious, black foliaged three-foot-high bush which will give you flowers for many years to come. Your potted bouquet just transformed itself into a proper permanent garden shrub. Garden magic.

3 flowers for your spring garden
Bring Tuxedo® hydrangea home and pop it into a cache-pot like this basket and you’ll enjoy weeks of living flowers. This is the red lacecap version.

2. A shade shifter: there’s a rose called Flower Carpet® Amber. It’s pretty special even before we start talking about its magic secret, because it grows fast, stays green (USDA zones 5-10) and flowers from spring through to autumn. But what makes Amber really special is the way it looks like it’s more than one rose. To explain, just say you went out and planted Amber. After it had spent some time settling in and establishing itself, it would come into flower. And being a Flower Carpet rose, it would be covered in flowers. First the buds would swell – hundreds of them – and they’d be a lovely deep orange. These would open progressively into sherbet-shades of orange-yellow blooms. And then these flowers would settle into shades of soft pink and peach. So at any one time, the one rose bush looks like there are at least two very colour-complimentary roses growing together, one orange and one pink. Garden magic.

3 flowers for your spring garden
Three roses in one: Flower Carpet® Amber gives us orange buds, sherbet early blooms and soft peach pink full blooms.

3. Bare earth to wow: this is the classic spring surprise moment. It’s a wonderful thing to do with children who will probably love gardens from that point on (if they don’t already). Get some bulbs – daffodils, narcissus, freesias, tulips, whatever – and gather together a container and some potting mix. Shake in the potting mix to about half way up the side of the container, and pat it down. Then have your young assistants place the bulbs the right way up across the entire surface of the ‘soil’ (use the internet to help you work this out, or if in doubt, lay the bulbs on their sides). Cover everything gently with more potting mix and again, pat it down. Then keep your pot damp (but not soggy – watch out for overenthusiastic young waterers) and have everyone keep a look out for those first, miraculous spikes of green. It only gets better as colour and fragrance follow. Garden magic.

Garden magic
If you plant your bulbs tightly together you’ll not only get a great display like these tulips, but the flowers and foliage will help to support each other.