Corinne Mallet began collecting plants of the Hydrangea genus in 1984. Her collection soon became the largest in the world, and continued to grow from year to year, reflecting her passion for these plants.

In 1992, after collecting information and documents about the genus from far and wide, she published her first monograph on the genus, “Hydrangeas: species and cultivars”. In the same year she went on her first journey to Japan and returned the following year for a two-month expedition, from mid-June to mid-August. On this occasion she met Takeomi Yamamoto, the great Japanese hydrangea specialist, and became his disciple. It was also during this summer of 1993 that she opened her collection to visitors for the first time. She went on further expeditions to Japan in 1994, 1996 and 2000.

She wrote a further book about the genus Hydrangea in 1994. This was volume 2 of “Hydrangeas: species and cultivars” and, like the first volume, it was published in French, English and German. (1) To date, 20 000 copies of these two books have been sold throughout the world. In 1997 she published a beginners’ guide to growing hydrangeas: “Hortensias avec succès” (published by Rustica; 6000 sold to date.)

Corinne Mallet went on to produce a comprehensive guide presenting many different Hydrangea classified according to growing methods. This book, “Hortensias et autres Hydrangea” was published by Eugen Ulmer France in April 2002. The author then wrote a fifth book,” HYDRANGEA, portraits d’hydrangéas”, a botanical monograph for enthusiastic amateurs, published in 2008. It was published in French, English, German and Japanese (2).

This book presents the most complete and precise iconography of the Hydrangea genus to date. A thousand portraits illustrate the incredible diversity of the genus, even within each species.

This comprehensive work was only made possible through the existence of the “Shamrock” collection

It is the result of years of research by a specialist who devoted nearly 25 years to this work.

It contains some 800 colour photographs.

(1) Volume 1 is out of print, volume 2 is available from the Association’s head office.
(2) can be found second hand.