HYDRANGEA & VINE
Hydrangeas are a big deal around here. In mid-summer, there are hydrangea festivals, formal tours of private hydrangea gardens, half-price sales on hydrangea bushes at local nurseries, and more. Year-round, especially in local small businesses, you can find postcards and note cards featuring varieties of this gorgeous flower in full bloom. Hydrangeas are a favorite subject of local painters, too, especially for watercolors. And if you’ve ever seen any pottery featuring hydrangeas, chances are those pieces have been formed and fired at one of the studios and kilns nearby.
There are good years and not-so-good years for hydrangeas. If you live in the right place (and there are many right places for hydrangeas), you’re no more than a few minutes away from experiencing big, beautiful, blossoms bountiful enough to enrobe the bushes that brought them from bud to full flower – so full they look about to burst. Whether tended by professional gardeners in the landscaping of upscale resorts or seemingly left abandoned for years in sandy yards of even more abandoned seaside cottages, they offer a gift of silent presence to all, regardless of status.
Two years ago, the winter-spring transition was tough on hydrangeas. Nowhere were the effects more noticeable than at The Anchorhold. Here the grounds are neither tailored nor abandoned but mostly left to nature to sculpt. Crushing winter snowdrifts, early spring warmth punctuated by freezing cold spells, and big doses of drought made it seem as if the end were near for most of the bushes. This spring arrived and the bushes still looked so sparse and bruised and fragile that to prune them then was surely to kill them. No point in even looking at them…let nature do her work in private and without human help and wait for the outcome.
At the start of that year’s season, it appeared that at least one of the hydrangea bushes some distance away from the well worn paths around the house was leafing out lushly. The green covering of leaves became so dense that a pair of birds built a nest within, evident from their self-conscious flights to and fro. Well, no point in disturbing the birds to check the bush’s status – they’d finish raising their family soon enough and depart. And so they did. Then, no more reasons to procrastinate – high time to check that bush. A closer look revealed not lush hydrangea leaves but lush leaves on branches from an otherwise unnoticed vine at the center of the bush’s base. The sprawling vine branches and their leaves had quietly and without notice become a blanket for the hydrangea underneath. Uh-oh…was the hydrangea bush still alive? could the bush recover from having the sun and air and rain blocked out by the encircling vine branches? Removing the leafy vine branches from the hydrangea was the only way to find out…the only way to start recovery.
The vine branches and leaves were so intertwined with the hydrangea bush flowers and branches that removing them required a delicate touch – no power garden tools for this task. The vine branches, as is their habit, curly-cued around the hydrangea branches, as if to hold the hydrangea flowers and branches in protective custody. With each precise stroke of the pruning shears more and more of the hydrangea bush beneath became visible. Working from the top down and the outside in, eventually the entire hydrangea bush was free. It was indeed alive…and green…and full…and blossoming with blue blossoms. At the center of the bush was the vine from which all its branches and leaves had emerged and spread. That part of the vine was thick and woody and almost indistinguishable from the core stems of the hydrangea bush. That vine had clearly been there at the center of the hydrangea through all the previous tough seasons. Here the pruning stopped. Pruning the vine further would risk cutting down the core of the hydrangea, too. Let the hydrangea and vine share each other’s company as is.
As corny as it may seem, I couldn’t help thinking about that vine and its branches as if it were Christ and its church here on earth – and of that hydrangea bush as if it were someone – perhaps even many – in need of protection, rest , recuperation and restoration from the difficulties of its life. What would it be like if everyone outside the church could experience the embrace of the vine and branches at a time when it needs it most?
The Anchorhold’s hydrangea bush is still going strong. Yet to be seen anywhere else, however, is another pairing of hydrangea and vine like that one here at The Anchorhold. Perhaps other gardeners haven’t left their landscaping to nature. No matter. Next season is another opportunity to witness the hydrangea and vine here – together – alive – thriving.
Reflections from the Anchorhold 