Identifying Hydrangea Variety

It's another rainy day and another gloomy day. No gardening can be done in the garden in this weather which may last till Chinese New Year.

Have taken several pictures of the variety that i bought from Sungai Buloh 2 weeks ago. I'm trying to identify it's genus. My guess would be Hydrangea Macrophylla Rheinland - though I'm unsure about this.

Would you be 'Rheinland'?

You can see clearly in this picture that most of the petals (the actual flowers) are not opening yet. And then there's one that's blooming, at the top right. All petals are surrounded by deep pink sepals which we take as the hydrangea flower. 

The second variety is the one I bought in Cameron Highland 2 months+ ago. Now this one is a bit hard to identify. I don't think it's any one of these - but my lucky guess would be Hydrangea Macrophylla Bodensee or Hydrangea Macrophylla Dooley. I have 2 pots of this variety - one appears to have smoky lilac colour and the other, seems to be smoky pink.

Would you be 'Bodensee' or 'Dooley' or none of both? Who are you?

Up close and personal

The smoky pink coloured sepals due to alkaline soil

At a closer look

I'm sure gonna frame the close-up pictures and put them in my bedroom :)

Taking a break with roses

Haven't got a clue on how to buy other hydrangea varieties. So, in a way, I'm stuck with this plan for the time being. But, at least I do know the kind of varieties that would be great as cut flowers as denoted by a hydrangea expert and that Endless Summer, Harlequin and Parzifal are not so good as cut flowers. So, the question which is a mind-boggling for me... where can I buy varieties such as Altona? 


The complication would be in handling paper work (accordingly to rules and regulations) of importing plants from another country. So, another question that pops up is who can help me with this? 


I did manage to buy a hydrangea variety from Sungai Buloh. But I am unsure of the name of the genus of that hydrangea. I'll post a picture of that variety in another post. That's the problem with the nurseries in Malaysia. Most nurseries will be selling a lot of plants but, they lack the knowledge of the varieties of plants that they have. 


Thus, I'm taking a break for awhile with roses in my garden:

Bought from Sungai Buloh. Name unknown

Wedding Rose?

Name unknown

Queen of Sweden

Wish List

My wish list for hydrangea varieties:

• Hydrangea Macrophylla Endless Summer
• Hydrangea Macrophylla Harlequin
• Hydrangea Macrophylla Parzifal
• Hydrangea Macrophylla Altona

I would really like to get the varieties below from Hydrangea Plus, but, they don't provide shipping to Malaysia :(

• Hydrangea Macrophylla President R. Touchard
• Hydrangea Macrophylla Princess Juliana
• Hydrangea Macrophylla  Altona
• Hydrangea Macrophylla Brestenburg

More pictures of pink, blue and purplish hydrangeas from my garden. They are all from the same variety, but I don't know the name of the variety. I'm trying to find out about this.

They are all planted in pots under a shaded area, safe from current monsoon heavy rain which could droop the blooms. 

For blue blooms, the soil pH must be acidic. And if you want pink blooms, the soil pH must be alkaline. Another reason why I love them. I could easily change their bloom colors :) 

The blooms below are purplish which means the soil pH is neutral.

Week 1: Re-potting

 The current challenge for the Hydrangea Farm is to start a collection of hydrangea plants.

Cool drops of rain on hydrangea sepals

These are sepals and not petals. Thus the reason why the 'flower' lasts longer than any other flowers that exhibit their colorful petals

Blue hues

Refreshing look of the leaves

New life

This one is bigger than my face

How many do I need to start a hydrangea farm?
I don't know. The current plan is to have at least 20 pots or polybags. Will that be enough? Hmm..how many do I have now? 6 potted and 2 newly rooted with 3 varieties. That's why I'm still in search of websites that sell hydrangea plants online and provide shipping to Malaysia. I'm also very much interested in finding local nurseries that sell varieties of hydrangea plants. Why laa so difficult to find one in Malaysia? Guess that's one of the factors I'm starting this challenge.

Repotting
So, this week, I repotted 2 hydrangea plants. One which I rooted last year. It's growing big now with beautiful big pink blooms. The other is the hydrangea plant that I bought in Cameron Highland early Dec last year. Not sure what varieties they are.

After re-potting

The 2 smaller ones are the newly rooted

You're going to be moved!

Newly rooted 

Tools needed. Why the coffee powder? So hydrangea will have blue blooms

Bags of soil. Bought for RM5 each

Couldn't help to stop for a while and took this picture

The Stretch Tie. Bought at Ace Hardware to tie up low-lying hydrangea branches

Ok.. time to re-pot. Adding more soil

Adding fertiliser - mix of chicken manure and compost

Water 

 

Add more soil

Coconut peat

Add as mulch

All the work was done during a gloomy Saturday morning.