The Return of She

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha' July 14 2017

In our Buenos Aires garden my mother had a few hydrangeas in our Coghlan garden. But I never knew them by that name. For me they were hortensias. These plants have always occupied a warm place in my heart.

In our old Athlone Street garden in Kerrisdale here in Vancouver I amassed 32 of them. There were many mopheads and the lacecaps (the macrophyllas) but we had species, a climbing one and that special one the oak leaf hydrangea or Hydrangea querciofolia.

When I realized we had to move to our little duplex garden I was only able to choose two. One of them is a double flowered Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Anabelle’ and the other you would think is a lowly mophead to be seen in any garden. That is not the case.

Look closely and you will see that each individual floret looks like a teacup. Notice two in this first scan how the flower opens small in light green and progresses to blue via pink.

The name of this glorious hydrangea is Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Ayesha’. You might think that this is a misspelling of Mohamed’s wife Aisha. But that is probably not the case. It is the name of “She who must be obeyed” protagonist of H. Rider Haggard’s She and Ayesha, the Return of She.

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha' & Rosa 'Ferdinand Pichard' Sept 1 2008