‘Quickfire’ Hydrangea, is a lacecap type with pink and cream coloured flowers.

It still kind of bugs me that Madonna hates hydrangeas. Hydrangeas, fall into the Rodney Dangerfield category of plants, in that they “don’t get no respect” in certain circles. A recent garden tour I was on, had garden designers—English gardeners, especially—pooh poohing the ubiquitous pink and blue balls that were everywhere. Do they hate them because they are all too familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt? It’s often so, in the plant world.

I happen to love hydrangeas, but can imagine a time where coming across yet another flush of blue mop head flowers could grow tiresome. While I’m still not tired of white Annabelle—the flowers are so fresh and perky, and you can’t go wrong with lime green—I am rather more in love with the lace cap form of the hydrangea. The lace cap flower is flattened, and a little bit open, well, like lace. And there are some wonderful new varieties, like ‘Quickfire’ above, which blooms before other hydrangeas by about a month. The creamy-white flowers open first, then change to pink, becoming deeper pink as the season progresses. The make flowers on new wood grown that season, so a reliable bloomers, and good for cut flowers. What’s not to like?