Hydrangea and Friends

Every season of the year has its unique selection of flowers. Hydrangeas are special here as they are very healthy growing as much as two meters in height and having a much wider variety of colours as well as species. There are those that are similar to ones seen in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but here there is another variety that resembles the flower heads of a high bush cranberry. A showy ring of sterile flowers surrounds a central core of smaller fertile florets which usually have a different colour.
In Manitoba we have white, pink and blue hydrangea with the latter two colours supposedly based on soil pH. In Japan there maybe some influence of soil pH especially when one sees varying shades on one bush, but there are definite colour varieties here independent of pH.
Other flowers are included for variety such as the bottle brush bush. I have seen a "wild" tree which appears to be of the legume family which has a much smaller pink version of the bottle brush flower.
The plants draped over the concrete wall are quite common at this time of the year. The flowers close up at night and love sunshine.
The two photographs of white, pink and rose coloured blossoms were short lived flowers in spring, but all three colours occur on the same bush.
The long tassel like flowers are found on the "kuri" or chestnut tree. This tree begins developing chestnuts at three years and has a life expectancy of about twelve years due to inherent disease.

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