This year my front garden had the bluest hydrangeas and this photo really captured the color exactly. But the price I paid is a bush that is now almost completely dead and I think it is because I let the soil get too alkaline. Most of the stems did not leaf or flower and I think the soil was out of balance around most of the bush. You need just the right amount of acid/alkaline balance to get blue hydrangeas otherwise the bush just gets very pink in the marine clays that are in DC gardens. What I will probably do is just cut the bush down completely and see if it will grow back. We did that once before and it grew beautifully a couple of years later. Garden resurrections are among the best!
June was a terrific month for flowers in my city garden this year. It seemed like everything bloomed profusely all at once. Not just the day lilies and the Asiatic lilies, but the pink and the white roses, as well as the biggest hydrangea heads in several years, not to mention the petite little orange nasturtiums that I am very happy about as this is the first year I really got them to flower after growing them from seeds. And now we are in July, many of them are deadheads or getting very wilted as the heat is so much for them. But the flowers have been wonderful so far even though we are now only enjoying crepe myrtles and tube vine and some honeysuckle which I will photograph soon and add to this page. I just love having tons of flowers in the garden. 
