Hydrangeas

Although Downton Abbey is fictionally based in Yorkshire, the real Dower House where the Dowager Lady Grantham lived is actually in Surrey. However, the garden scenes which supposedly took place at that property were actually filmed here at Highclere.

These scenes usually took place between Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton and often involved tea. The backdrop in the garden, on more than one occasion, was white Annabelle hydrangeas, their large white heads flowering over several months to magnificent effect.

 Given the amount of rain that has fallen over the last seven months, the Annabelle’s have done especially well this year. The flower heads have never been so large, the leaves particularly vivid and healthy as they spill exuberantly over the borders and terracotta pots.

The name, hydrangea, describes how they prefer to live.

It is derived from the Greek ὕδωρ húdōr “water” + ἄγγος ángos or ἀγγεῖον angeîon “vessel”. 

Water, and lots of it, is essential to their success. They flower in showy panicles, clusters of flower heads, from late spring to early autumn. In simplistic terms, hydrangeas will produce blue flowers in more acidic soil (Ph 5 or less) and pink flowers in more alkaline soils such as at Highclere. In fact it is more intricate than that because it is the naturally occurring aluminium ions in the soil and the plants’ ability to absorb them on which the colour of the Hydrangea ultimately depends. 

Colours can range from the palest of pinks, lavenders and powder blues to deep rich purples, reds and royal blues. However, white hydrangeas cannot be influenced by soil ph as they do not produce pigment for any colour saturation levels. 

Curiously, the huge hydrangea flower heads are not flowers at all — like flowering dogwoods, their “petals” are really modified leaves and the actual ‘flower’ inconspicuous in the very middle. 

Of the 75 or so species of hydrangeas, most of them are native to Asia. Records suggest the hydrangea was cultivated in Japan but didn’t appear in Europe until 1736, when one was brought to England.They are associated with different things in each country.

In Japan, the flower is associated with heartfelt emotion, understanding and apology whilst in Europe they were used to impute arrogance and boastfulness. This was because, whilst the plant has many flowers, it produces very few seeds.

Today each colour is said to represent different moods. Blue hydrangeas are the ones most commonly associated with regret and apology, white ones represent grace, purity, and vanity, pink are for appreciation and gratitude, yellow is for joy and friendship and green hydrangeas are for rebirth, prosperity, abundance, and renewal.

 At Highclere, white hydrangeas clamber up the old walls in the Monks’ Garden, pink hydrangeas fill the barrels and pots in the courtyard as well as being planted in the Wood of Goodwill and a whole host of various white ones can be admired in the White border and  Secret Garden. 

They have a strong shape in winter and most tend to be better pruned in the early spring which makes them useful garden flowers. Hydrangea arborescens Annabelle is much repeated throughout and, trimmed back to 10 inches high each New Year, it regrows with enthusiasm every year. We all need renewed enthusiasm!