Hydrangea

We call this a Million Dollar Flower in our locality back in my country. It's foliage are quite impressive, with large, dark green oval leaves, often with serrated edges. Flowerheads are made up of very small fertile flowers surrounded by larger, eye-catching, 4-petalled, sterile florets, and usually emerge in spring and summer.

Colors range from white through to red, purple, and blue.

A member of the mallow (Malvaceae) family, this flower grows in warm, temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions of the world.

Hydrangea features lush foliage and large flamboyant blooms in vibrant colors. In other places, these plants are grown not only for their great beauty, but also for their edible leaves and flowers. It can also be trimmed to shape and make effective hedging or screening plants.

Flowering Season: Summer, Spring

Source: Gardening Australia

Homemade Floral Arrangement by Jan

This floral arrangement is done by Jan, our local Elder's wife. Before she came into our little congregation, we ladies in the church used to take turn in bringing fresh flowers for the service. Upon her arrival, she made it sure that none of us will be burdened as flowers are very expensive to buy. We have flowers right here in our village but am too shy to ask. People don't usually pick flowers from the garden. My own flowers are not much to take anyway and I often forget that I have grown right in my own place.

What has attracted me to the simplicity of the arrangement is this old-fashioned flower vase, a very very old one. It has a base covered with velvet. The TV Antique Roadshow helped me to identify the genuineness of an antique item. So that's what I am doing now each time I see an old ware like this one.

Incidentally, I found out that the Curio Shops or Opportunity Shops here in our area have learned the trade of overpricing items which are normally given to them by willing donors if they think that the item is valuable.

Cheers!

Fuschia

106% Enhanced colour effect

Original

Mostly climbing or spreading shrubs, fuchsias have deep green, heavily veined leaves that grow in whorls on the stems. The pendulous flowers have long tubes with flared sepals and often contrastingly colored petals, mostly in shades of red, white, pink, and purple, as well as bicolored. The garden hybrids usually have rounded flowers with a skirt of large sepals around an often double corolla. Fleshy berries, usually with many seeds, follow the flowers.

Source: Plant Profile

Cheers!