How to keep hydrangeas blue (flowers, grow, yard, nursery)
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Please do tell...tips for what exactly I could put in the soil to keep my endless summer blooms blue. The nursery had some stuff at $15 pop which is too expensive.
I keep hearing about the sodium stuff but it is never explained what exactly it is or where to get it. Does anyone know?
For the most part, my new blooms are coming in purplish blue instead of a deep blue.
I faithfully add all my coffee grinds around my hydrangea and cover with pine needles. I've heard pickle juice too, but how much pickle juice can one have? I have been conteplating taking a bucket to starbucks and asking for their grinds too.
Please do tell...tips for what exactly I could put in the soil to keep my endless summer blooms blue. The nursery had some stuff at $15 pop which is too expensive.
I keep hearing about the sodium stuff but it is never explained what exactly it is or where to get it. Does anyone know?
For the most part, my new blooms are coming in purplish blue instead of a deep blue.
You need to add aluminum sulfate to the soil to lower the PH. The lower the PH and the more acidic the soil the bluer your blooms should be. You can buy aluminum sulfate at a garden center. I would also recommend testing the soil.
I agree with the suggestion to use sulfur. It's safe, effective and won't burn plant roots the way aluminum sulfate can - though that's still an option if nothing else works for you. The coffee grounds, pine needle and pine bark chips will certainly help. Don't use the pickle juice; it contains too much salt. One of these articles mentions adding a teaspoon of vinegar per gallon of water when hand watering. Another article suggested that the ratio could be 2:1 water/vinegar; that sounds like way too much to me.
I used to hand water my hydrangea from the nearby fish pond...until I remembered that we were raising the pH of that water to neutral-alkaline for the fish.
Espoma makes a product they now call Soil Acidifier. Last year, it was Garden Sulfur. Lowe's and Depot should have it.
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