Show-offs

In my part of the world we crave blue hydrangeas. We try to change the pH of our soil to coax anything vaguely resembling blue from a hydrangea prone to blue flowers. One year I had a bit of success and celebrated when a half-pink, half-light blue flower showed up on my Nikko blue hydrangea. I think we raised a raise to toast it.

So pardon me if I get a little miffed that in some places it is so easy to produce amazing blue hydrangea blooms that they act like it's no big deal.

Like this lacecap variety (I hope it looks blue; I was trying to do photoshop on my iPad, mostly unsuccessfully).




Where did I find that? Oh just along the side of a busy roadway.




And then there's this:



All those blooms just hanging out in the parking lot. Just because it's a little raised planting box that keeps people from parking their Mercedes on the deck of a yacht doesn't mean they have to throw it in our faces.

Or this lowly planting, jammed in the corner of the parking lot at the hotel.



Oh yeah? Well those geraniums look like crap. So there. See what I've been reduced to? Geranium bashing. How sad.

(Filed from a quick trip to Newport, Rhode Island, where I had to take a whirlwind work trip this week. Just because they happen to have amazing seafood and world-class sailing doesn't mean they should get blue hydrangeas too.)