Is there anything more beautifully Southern?

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms. Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him.
Auguste Rodin

(pink hydrangea blooms, Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

Ode to the showy hydrangea.
Some consider the hydrangea a boastful an overtly showy plant / bush. They are capped off with large garish clusters of blooms mounding in a giant heavy clump.
These plants grow long woody stems, accented with equally large green leaves, topped with giant colorful pompoms of flowers. They can grow quit massive if not watched and pruned.

The ph of the soil is the key in determining whether a hydrangea will be pink or blue. I wrote about my blue hydrangeas last summer, offering several images.
And as I do have two blue bushes, it is when I see the pink varieties, as was the case in Savannah, that I am so taken by their light, airy and dainty feminine charm. The pink blooms seem almost more soft and tender than the blue.

This past Winter’s harsh final hooray of wicked weather, which we experienced in the early days of a slow coming Spring, took a great toll on my hydrangeas. Fearing the worst, that I had lost my hydrangeas to the deep freeze, I had to cut them back almost to the ground. Luckily for me, life prevailed, and they have managed to leaf back out, but unfortunately will not bloom this season.

So until I have my own blooms sprouting, I will have to enjoy the blooms of others.
I hope you will enjoy them as well. . .