Flowers for Display – Hydrangeas

I always try and have flowers on my pitch when selling, as they can make the space look pretty.  Unfortunately I often leave them in the van for days afterwards which means they never last!  Whilst out brocanting yesterday I came across a large dried bunch of what I think is called Sea Lavender, and made my other half buy them for me.  I thought they would make a great display together with the dried bunches of hydrangeas I have at the moment.

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The hydrangeas I have are from a neighbour’s garden.   Our garden here is large but hasn’t been used as a proper garden for a long time, so we have lots of plans over the coming years to make it less of a field, and more a space to spend time in.  We have made a small start by putting in a rockery, and we have lots of pots around, so although it does feel like a garden, mainly it is just grass.  I bought a few hydrangeas earlier in the season and although they have done well, they are poor relations to the ones that a neighbour has.  Theirs are 3 times the size of ours, with a lot of flowers on, and every time I’ve seen them, I’m afraid to admit that I coveted them.  Not just envy you understand, but passionate longing over the summer that has given me plenty of time for the planning and plotting of how I could steal them!

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Should I slink along in the night and cut a few blooms off each bush so that they would never notice, or just pull a few heads as I sauntered by.  Obviously we like our French neighbours, and so I would never have followed through with nefarious plans, but it shows how much I wanted those blooms.

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Imagine my dismay when we came back home after a few days at a fair in the UK to find that the hydrangea bushes had been decimated, totally cut down, and all the glorious flowers gone.  What was I to do – there are plenty of hydrangeas around in villages, but I have no desire to be arrested.  Luckily my other half noticed a large pile of the cuttings and went to investigate.  He came back 30 minutes later with armfuls, all still in lovely condition, which I have dried upside down in the kitchen.  Sat with a coffee looking at my bounty that evening, I mused that if I had gone to see the neighbours, they would probably have let me cut down the bushes and kept the flowers, and saved them a job into the bargain.  Why I didn’t think of this months ago is beyond me, but hopefully I won’t have to dream up any more plans as my own plants next year will be as glorious as theirs have been this.

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