Tangled Branches: Cultivated

…lock the front door, oh boy. Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch..

and write a blog post. I really did just get back from Illinois, where I attended a wedding last weekend.

Enormous Pink Hydrangeas and some other flowers

I was distracted from conversation during the reception because I kept staring at the flowers on the table, trying to understand what I was looking at. It took me a long time to realize that the huge fringed pink flowers that looked like Dianthus were actually florets of even huger pink hydrangea flowers. Now, I’ve seen some big hydrangea flowers before, where the individual florets were more or less “normal” sized, but these flowers were something else. Each floret was about the size of a carnation or rose (check the photo), and fringy like a Dianthus flower. There were streaks of green on some of the sepals. Can anybody enlighten me as to the variety? I’ve been browsing wholesale florists’ websites and I find many photos of large hydrangea flowers, but none with fringy sepals.

Another look at the table arrangement

The bouquets had a lovely fragrance too, mostly from the peachy-pink carnations, which was another surprise because there were also pale pink stocks. I expected the stocks to have much more scent than they did, and definitely more than the carnations.

But I wasn’t totally preoccupied with the flowers. No, I picked up a useful tip at the reception from a fellow gardener. Suppose you’re working in the garden when you suddenly remember that a social engagement (say a wedding) is fast approaching, and you look down at your hands and wonder how you’re going to get the dirt out from under your fingernails. Hydrogen peroxide! (Thanks, S!)