A world-famous flower native to China, blooming in all four seasons and easy to grow, with unique flower shapes ideal for pot cultivation

Introduction

Green plants and potted flowers are essential decorations for home life; they beautify the room and also delight the mind and nurture the character. Keeping some flowers and plants at home brings many benefits. "Flower Sound Potted Diary - Issue 992" introduces you to a world-famous flower native to China.

Today's Featured Plant

We see this plant very often in daily life, especially in the south, where it is commonly used as a street landscaping tree, while in the north it is mostly grown in courtyards and on balconies as a potted ornamental. This is the famous bigleaf hydrangea, popular in Western Europe and Japan, a world-famous flower and an excellent landscaping plant, highly prized by the horticultural world and loved by flower enthusiasts.

Bigleaf Hydrangea

The bigleaf hydrangea is a shrub of the genus Hydrangea in the family Saxifragaceae. Its flower shape is unique, like a giant hydrangea ball, and its flower colors are rich, giving it high ornamental value. What few people know is that the bigleaf hydrangea originated in China, and the Chinese were already cultivating it on a large scale for ornamental purposes as early as the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, most of what we see today are horticultural varieties bred by Western Europeans; in the field of plant breeding, we still lag quite far behind.

Long Blooming Period

The bigleaf hydrangea has a very long blooming period. Cultivated in a greenhouse, it can bloom all year round; in its natural state, the blooming period is spring, summer and autumn. The flower colors include white, blue and pink, and the leaves stay evergreen all year round, making it an excellent material for beautifying courtyards and balconies. Even more remarkable, its flower color changes: when it first opens it is pink, and after a while it turns blue, which is very interesting and highly ornamental.

Easy to Cultivate

The bigleaf hydrangea is a woody plant and a shade-loving species of the warm zone. It is relatively cold-tolerant; in the Yangtze River basin and areas to the south it can be grown outdoors through the winter, while in the north it must be moved indoors to survive the winter. For pot cultivation, loam soil that drains well and is rich in humus is best. Water following the principle of "water when dry, not when wet" - if it is not dry, there is no need to bother with it. Apply additional fertilizer appropriately, and it will bloom abundantly year after year.

Worth Having

With its unique flower shape and color-changing blooms, the bigleaf hydrangea is the kind of flower you fall in love with at first sight, so beautiful that people have no resistance to it, and it has a great many admirers. The forums related to the bigleaf hydrangea are probably the most active among plant and flower forums, because its flower color can be adjusted artificially, and flower enthusiasts all like to share their results. In short, it is a potted ornamental plant well worth having.