Imagine a cloud of pretty little blue butterflies hovering together…. that’s how I see hydrangeas in bloom. When Darryn and I were married our bridesmaids carried a bundle of blue hydrangeas each, and the crisp white tables were bustling with hydrangeas that we’d gathered from generous gardeners all over my childhood seaside village (A lovely positive twist to our obligatory wedding disaster – florist had sold the business and not passed on the details of our wedding to the new owners!! Thank goodness for generous neighbours and a creative aunt who used to be a florist!). SO… hydrangeas and I have history. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover a corner garden in the backyard full of hydrangeas, herein known as “the hydrangea garden”. There is a pink and white lace-cap, a beautiful pale blue, almost mauve lace-cap, a very large white weeping one and three smaller ones that didn’t flower and hence did not disclose their true identity. BUT… so far, no traditional mophead blues as per our wedding… so…. here begins my journey into PROPAGATION!!   One of my girlfriends has a stunning mophead in her garden, the flowers seem to glow somewhere between blue and mauve, so, I took a cutting!  Oh dear, what have I started? I now feel compelled to propagate everything… and my first guinea pig has barely touched soil yet! So many possibilities, and they’re FREE!!! Roses, camellias, rhodos, azaleas here I come!! Today I pruned my large blue/mauve lace-cap. Every single bit I chopped off I cut up and either stuck directly in the ground in the “hydrangea garden” or stuck into a pot (to HOPEFULLY plant along the shaded side of the house one day). I officially have 26 cuttings. Hmmmm….. I wonder how many will take? I’ll get back to you in spring!