One group of flowering shrubs that make the summer season so beautiful are hydrangeas. Recently, I couldn’t help but notice how striking they are when positioned next to the architectural features of a house or yard, like white fences, porches, railings and steps, arbors, and front doors.
I started noticing how hydrangeas and the architecture were so meant for each other. They are a gorgeous complement to one another.
Hydrangea blooms beginning to turn white from their initial light green stage. Love this look of the hydrangeas with the period architectural features of the house – clapboard siding, slate roof shingles, and panel shutters.
If the opportunity presents itself in the design projects we do for clients, we like to make the space look like it has been there for a while, like it has had time to acquire the ‘patina’ of age. Being a shrub that was used in period landscapes (think Colonial revival), and today termed ‘old-fashion’, using hydrangeas in the landscape can almost immediately give a ‘settled’ feel to a landscape.
In design, whether interior or outdoors, it is popular with both designers, and homeowners, to achieve a desired ‘look or feel’ to a space. This porch has such a relaxed feel, almost cottage-like, and the informal planting of hydrangeas is perfectly in sync with the porch –
How about this grayed cedar-shingle house with its white trim, arbor-covered entry, and a white fence and gate flanked by a large hydrangea – so perfectly charming –
How beautifully, and seamlessly, do these blue hydrangeas blend the architecture of the porch with the lawn –
Hydrangeas can help give a newer home the timeless look like you would find on older homes. They are as classic in the yard of a house that overlooks an ocean beach as they are in the yard of a 2-story colonial on a tree-lined street.
The marriage of hydrangeas and architecture is stunning –
same house at the front steps –
Separating spaces between porch and pool –
Classically matched –
What architectural features do you like to match with hydrangeas?
~M
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