“ Some of it looks like a storybook,” photographer Jack Cohen said of the spectacular hydrangea blooms he has captured this season, from the vibrant clusters of purple and pink overflowing from bushes in the Back Bay to the deep blue flowers delicately spilling over white picket fences in Chatham. “It’s sort of hard to believe that it’s real,” said Cohen, 47, who lives in Boston. By all accounts, this season has brought one of the most stunning displays of hydrangeas in many years, particularly for the macrophylla variety, also referred to as bigleaf.
Commonly planted in gardens, the type is known for its prolific blooms and large mophead flowers in a variety of bright colors. Long associated with the maritime climate of Cape Cod and the Islands, the flower has bloomed in spectacular fashion all across New England this year, inspiring awe and curiosity over their abundance. Advertisement For almost five decades, Mal Condon, who is known as the “ Hydrangea Guy ” or “ Hydrangea Whisperer, ” has spent hours toiling in the soil with the woody ornamental landscape shrub.
The curator of hydrangeas at the Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich, which will take part in the 10th annual Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival beginning July 5, Condon, 86, said that “it’s a very good year” for the flower so far. Why might that be? “It’s pretty simple,” said Condon, who lives in Yarmouth. There are six major species of hydrangeas, but “all of the focus is on just .
