Hydrangea Quotes

“Tonight Ray will tape the the drenched oasis inside of the silver bowl that sits on the top of the candelabra and fill it with the pale green hydrangeas, pink English garden roses, lilies of the valley, and extravagant lavender sweet peas that R.L., the local florist/antique dealer, delivered a few hours ago. The flowers are all soaking in their respective sugar water jugs in her kitchen- out of the direct sunlight, of course- as is the oasis which she'll mold into every bowl and vase in the house with a similar arrangement. She's even going to make an arrangement in a flat sweetgrass basket to hang on the front door and a round little pomander of pale green hydrangea with a sheer white ribbon for Little Hilda to hold as she greets the guests in the foyer.
Ray is tempted to snip the last blossoms of gardenias growing secretly behind Cousin Willy's shed. In her estimation they are the quintessential wedding flower, with their intoxicating fragrance and their delicate cream petals surrounded by those dark, waxy leaves. She bought the seedlings when R.L. and the gals weren't looking at the Southern Gardener's Convention in Atlanta four years ago, and no one has any idea she's been growing them. Sometimes she worries that the fragrance will give her away, but they bloom the same time as the confederate jasmine, which grows along the lattice work of the shed, and she can always blame the thick smell on them. It would take a truly trained nose to pick the gardenias out, and Ray possesses the trained nose of the bunch.”
― Beth Webb Hart, The Wedding Machine

“Morwen kept a good pace over the green lawn, but she paused in the side garden, where the sorrel tree's feathery leaves had turned a brilliant scarlet. A great white hydrangea made a backdrop for clumps of lobelia and lilyturf.”
― Louisa Morgan, A Secret History of Witches

“There's something hidden in the Maze," he says quietly.
"Really?" My eyes widen. "Like buried treasure?"
"Something like that. But you'll have to be my good little girl and wait," he cautions. "We can't go get it, not for a while."
I frown, unaccustomed to waiting. Sensing my displeasure, Dad takes my hand.
"It's there for you when you really need it. You'll know when that day comes." He looks at me intently. "If I'm not here to show you... just remember the hydrangeas. When you see them, that means you're close.”
― Alexandra Monir, Suspicion

“Doesn't it seem like the thin green stems won't be strong enough to hold its heavy flower cluster? But it is stronger than it looks. See all the tiny white flowers? There has to be at least a hundred individual flowers in every cluster, each with four petals, and some are even tinted with pale-pink dots, like they're trying to set themselves apart from the others. They're so pretty it's hard to believe they're even real. They're hydrangeas and are believed to represent heartfelt feelings, persistence, and thankfulness for being accepted.”
― Heather Webber, In the Middle of Hickory Lane

“Today, each time I looked at the house, I could see danger seeping out the windows like smoke. As night fell, I concentrated on the mounds of purple, white, and pink flowers that clustered against the siding: sweet peas that came back this time of year no matter how neglected. The petals were confused; they grew every which way out of their long stalks and emerged as butterfly wings rather than flowers. Now in the looming blackness, I watered the hydrangeas with their tiny white buds-blooms that patiently waited for a petal to fall so another could take its place. It would take a hundred years to count all the buds on a hydrangea bush. They just never gave up.”
― Valerie Dunsmore, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

“Hydrangea: A flowering shrub with large spherical clusters of blossoms whose soft, honey-vanilla scent evokes feelings of both abundance and maternal love”
― Meg Donohue, The Memory Gardener