June over, July in full swing, my roadside stand is full of flowers rather than strawberries.

We have a hedge of Endless Summer hydrangea, which bloom from some time in June through the fall.  They love water – there’s a reason ‘hyd’ is in their name – and benefit from a deep root soak as well as a good misting on the flowers themselves. Some of my plants get much more sun than they would like, so I have to keep on top of watering or they will droop dramatically. As cut flowers, they will last a week or so if the stems are trimmed each day, and if they begin to sag can be perked up with a soak in cold water.

I originally planted these thinking they’d give us a bit of privacy from the street. What ended up happening, though, was they had the opposite effect. People began to stop to ask for information on growing them, to tell us how much they love driving by them every day, or to chat about their own gardening. All much nicer than privacy, it turns out.