hydrangea colour

Hello i'm new to this forum; i have grown abouta dozen hydrangeas from cuttings. They came from different varieties, some being blue-flowered and some pink. They are all producing pink flowers now! All the parent plants were from the same area of North Somerset, oon a clay soil. Any ideas why the "offspring" are now al making pink flowers, and can I safely add anything to the soil to change this?

 

hi Andrew,
welcome to the site, we are all friendly gardening people, and if you have a look around you will see some members take on board other hobbies as well ...... from photography (frogesque and others ) to self build locomotives (ewal)
i m no expert on hydrangeas but i know that here in Scotland our acid soils produce mostly blue hydrangeas, so maybe try some chelated iron liquid feed during growing season (available from many garden retailers )for the plants you expected to be blue. Use ericaceous compost to mulch them now, in winter you could fork in more compost without fear of killing off the plants

 

Hi andrew-g and welcome to the forum!

 

Hello Andrew-g welcome from rosa

 

Welcome andrew-g from lovely somerset

 

Hi Andrew-g
you can buy hydrangea colourant from garden centres, it can be applied occasionally through winter but best from feb onwards.

 

Hi there and welcome!

Yup! acid = blue, alkaline = pink. Hydrangas are the litmus paper of the the plant world!!

 

Hi and welcome.
I've always 'managed' my colours with a handful of rusty nails or an old scouring pad at the root base. Works for me!

 

Here is a pic. of one of my hydrangeas that I took today, I'm so pleased with it. Ooops - sorry its so large, how do I make pics smaller please?

 

Hello and welcome andrew-g.

 

I am new to the forum and gardening. My mum and Gran were both keen gardeners and i distinctly remember my gran planting a tin can under a hydranger to turn it blue must be something in the metal i suppose.

 

Hi Andrew Welcome to GC!!!

 

lol shiney!! Lovely hydrangea - going pale like that, is it the opposite to blushing, do you suppose?