Popular flowering garden shrubs like hydrangeas regularly confound us by altering the color of their flowers after they have been planted. And since the color change is probably a slow process, it can take a few years before you notice it has happened.
Can the color be changed back? is one of the first queries that a new student or client for landscape design makes. Is the hydrangea in trouble? is a different issue.
Will my Hydrangea die if it changes colour?
If the only problem is the color change of the blue to pink or pink and purple to blue blossoms, it is doubtful that your hydrangea is dying. Hydrangeas are often simple plants to maintain. As we’ll see below, your Hydrangea’s color change could have underlying factors that could ultimately harm the shrub’s general health.
Why has my Blue Hydrangea turned Pink?
After being brought home and planted in the garden, not all hydrangea varieties will change the color of their flowers. The soil determines whether they do.
The bushes that are most frequently seen in gardens are hydrangea macrophylla, also referred to as mop-head hydrangeas. Due to the rounded flower balls on them, they are known as mop heads. Lace cap hydrangeas, in contrast, have smaller, fertile flowers that are encircled by bigger, sterile sepals.
These two hydrangea kinds will almost certainly change color depending on the pH of your soil. With a pH meter or test kit from a garden center, you can quickly determine how acidic or alkaline your garden soil is. Also see the blogs listed below.
The impact this has on the levels of aluminum in the soil, rather than just the acidity of the soil, is the real cause. Aluminum levels rise with soil acidity, turning pink and purple hydrangeas blue as a result. The blue flowered should persist on soil with a pH of 6 or lower.
If you want to be sure of retaining the blossom color, the tip is to check the soil pH before you buy a mop-head or lace cap Hydrangea.
How do I Keep my Blue Hydrangea Blue?
Alternately, place your mop-head hydrangeas in a peat-free ericaceous compost-filled ericaceous bed. Rhododendrons, azaleas, and your hydrangeas might all be planted together. A floral display from April to October can be expected if you group all the acid-loving plants together.
How do I Keep my Pink Hydrangea Pink?
by having soil that is alkaline, or has a pH of 7 or above. An acceptable pH range of 6.57 should be achieved; cover with compost made from used mushrooms to help keep the soil alkaline.
Why not grow your hydrangeas in containers if your soil is acidic? One on each side of your entrance door might look really attractive.
What about my Purple flowered Hydrangea?
A good query! I’m not sure I can readily respond to that question because it depends not just on the soil but also on the shrub’s ancestry. Because of this, some purple hydrangea blossoms do not turn pink when planted in acidic soil.
Why has my Blue Hydrangea turned PinkMore Solutions to the Problem
Why not buy a Hydrangea that won’t change color when planted to make your life easy from the start? Not all hydrangeas exhibit the same tendency for blossom color change.
For instance, even in macrophylla cultivars, white and green flowering variations have a tendency to remain the same color.
Hydrangea petiolaris
Likewise called the climbing hydrangea. It is a robust, self-clinging climbing shrub that is cultivated for its heads of white flowers.
It takes time to establish itself, but once it does, it can grow vigorously and may need to be pruned if you don’t want it to cling to your gutters!
Dark green foliage changes to butter yellow in the fall before wintering as a tracery of branches. The young twigs have a lovely reddish brown sheen.
HydrangeaPruning Tips
It’s not just about the reason why your blue hydrangea turned pink, of course. You could be perplexed as to why there aren’t any flowers at all despite pruning the bush.
Although hydrangeas don’t need much trimming, adopting a strategy that promotes new wood will keep them from being too woody. Continue reading to make sure you pruned your shrub correctly for its type.
Between February and early March, you can prune a lot of summer-flowering deciduous shrubs, typically those that bloom on the growth of the current year. One hydrangea that has to be pruned frequently is hydrangea paniculata.
On the wood from the previous year, mop-head hydrangeas bloom. If you live in a mild climate, you can deadhead by cutting back to a strong pair of shoots as early as late February, or you can wait until March.
What next?
Now that we know the reason why the blue hydrangea turned pink, we can determine which blossom colors are still the same as when you first acquired the plant.
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Gardens to visit with Hydrangeas
The Holehird Gardens, home of the Lakeland Horticultural Society, includes a Hydrangea walk with more than 300 species if you’d like to take in hydrangeas in their entirety. In July and August, this is the place to go if you’re still not convinced about the beauty of hydrangeas because you’re likely to locate one for your own yard. Check out a description of one of my visits in the list of blogs below.
Even though they don’t have the same diversity of species as those available at Holehird, other locations of the UK with acidic soil frequently have attractive displays of hydrangeas. One particularly evocative example is the shady drive at Portmeirion, which has lighting Hydrangea plants tracing your path. There are more gardens worth seeing on the west coast of Scotland, in Ireland, and in Cornwall.
Visit Plews Potting Shed blogs, such as the ones below and our monthly Tipsheet, for additional gardening guidance and inspiration.
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Why did my blue hydrangea turn pink?
Blue hydrangeas were detested by my mother-in-law and disparaged as garish trailer park plants. In an attempt to kill the roots, she poured hot grease from her kitchen upon them, but it was ineffective. The blue blooms, which clashed with her magnificent golden euonymus and crimson artificial poinsettias, just kept coming.
Hydrangea Colors Changing She could have changed the color of her hydrangeas to a pink hue that looks much better with red fake poinsettias if she had known the method I’m about to share. She only needed to alter her soil; she didn’t need to change her mindset.
You see, the pH of the soil is indicated by the flower color of the majority of French hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla). Flowers turn blue in soil that is extremely acidic (pH < 6). Flowers turn pink or even scarlet in alkaline soil (pH above 7). Purple or a combination of blue and pink blooms on a single shrub are possible on soil that is neutral or slightly acidic (pH 6 to 7). Remember that choices' sensitivity to pH varies. For instance, "Ami Pasquier" and "Purple Tiers" both maintain their color in all but the most acidic soil.
Do white hydrangeas count? I’m sorry, but they won’t cooperate. Regardless of the pH of the soil, they remain white.
Select a Hydrangea Color These six hydrangeas are among of our favorites and are frequently available. It can depend on your soil.
Except in extremely acidic soil, where it becomes a wine-purple color, “Ami Pasquier” has crimson blossoms. Lacecap design. ‘Ayesha’: The distinctive cupped petals attract the eye. pink to light blue in color. leaves with a lustrous deep green color. sort of mophead. Repeat blooming flowers on both old and new growth describe “Endless Summer.” possibly pink or blue. sort of mophead. “Madame Emile Mouillere”: Dedicated and tenacious. widely regarded as the finest white. May bloom again. sort of mophead. “Nikko Blue” is a dependable, hardy plant that has been commonly planted for a long time. soil that is alkaline turns pink. sort of mophead. Beautiful double-flowered lacecap variety called “Purple Tiers.” In acidic soil, water lily-shaped blossoms are a rich purple color; in alkaline soil, they are pink.
Making cut-flower hydrangeas It makes sense to want to cut the last French hydrangea blossoms because they are so lovely in the yard and may be displayed on your porch or brought inside. However, when the blossoms wilt an hour after being placed in water, it can drive you crazy. How can this be stopped?
How are blue hydrangeas kept that color?
Although most plants may grow in a variety of soils, others require particular kinds of soil to thrive. Rhododendrons, azaleas, and other ericaceous plants require acidic soils in order to thrive. The soil in your garden must be acidic if they flourish there or in the gardens nearby. Rhododendron leaves turning yellow or disappearing from the area indicate that your soil is likely alkaline. In addition to affecting what you may grow, your soil type can also affect some plants’ leaf and blossom colors; hydrangeas are a well-known example.
Some hydrangea cultivars grow pink or red in alkaline soil and blue or purple in acidic soil. Therefore, if you plant a beautiful blue lacecap or mophead hydrangea in your garden and your soil is neutral to acidic, it will continue to produce blue flowers every year. Even if it was clear blue when you got it, it will flower purple-red or pink if you plant it in alkaline soil the next year.
It is challenging to keep beautiful blue blossoms alive in the open ground, but it is doable if you grow it in a pot; hydrangeas make wonderful topics for pots and containers. Select a pot that is attractive and big, at least 40 cm (15 cm) in diameter. Vitax Ericaceous Compost is the best growing medium for it; plant it there. If you consistently feed your hydrangea, it will thrive on this fertilizer that is specifically made for rhododendrons, azaleas, and other lime-hating plants.
Even though the growing medium begins out being free of lime, repeated watering in places with hard water tends to make it more alkaline. Therefore, add Vitax Hydrangea Colourant, a powder containing aluminum that you may mix with the compost, to ensure that your hydrangea stays truly blue. Each spring, you can also incorporate a small amount into the soil’s top layer and add it to the can when watering your plant.
White hydrangeas, incidentally, don’t change color depending on the type of soil, but they can blush pink in the light.
Feeding and watering
In pots, containers, and during dry spells in the open ground, regular watering is necessary since hydrangeas detest dry environments. When you plant your hydrangea in a bed or border, add lots of garden compost or farmyard manure, and make sure to water well both before and after planting.
The presence of food in the soil is necessary for hydrangeas to grow and produce flowers, even if they are not very demanding plants. In the open ground and in pots and containers, Vitax Conifer and Shrub Fertilizer should be used annually. This is ideal for acid-loving plants and won’t change the hydrangea’s color.
How can I restore the color of my hydrangea?
The chemistry of the soil, not what is sprayed to the blooms, is what determines how colored hydrangea blossoms turn out to be. The color of the blossoms will increase with soil alkalinity. Some types stay pink at a neutral pH, while others begin to display exquisite lavender hues with undertones of blue. Acidic soils, usually with a pH of 5.5 or less, are ideal for blue hydrangea blooming.
Aluminum sulfate, which is readily accessible at practically any garden center, is the simplest way to acidify your soil and turn those babies blue. In the spring, as soon as the plant starts to grow, saturate the soil around your hydrangeas with a solution of 1/4 oz. aluminum sulfate in a gallon of water. Reapply in 4 weeks and again in 8 weeks because you’ll need to keep that acidity throughout the growing season.
Another, more organic way to increase soil acidity is to add organic materials like coffee grounds, egg shells, or citrus fruit peels. Simply break them up and till the soil with them. It can take a full year of doing this continuously for the changes to occur gradually, resulting in the proper acidity.
How come my hydrangea has turned pink?
First off, like rhododendrons, azaleas, Japanese maples, pieris, etc., hydrangeas prefer and thrive in acidic soil. Your hydrangea’s change in color is caused by the pH of your soil. There are several levels of soil acidity and alkalinity in between.
Your soil’s health affects the health of your plants. The pH of the soil has an impact on and determines how hydrangeas change color.
Your hydrangeas will be pink or pinker if your soil is more alkaline. Clay is typically found in alkaline soils, which range in pH from to 79. Your blue hydrangeas will remain blue or get even bluer if your soil has a pH of around or less than 5.5.
If you know your soil is more alkaline than neutral, you should use soil acidifier or garden sulfur before planting blue hydrangeas. You’re unsure. If you’re unclear about the pH of your soil, you can search online for a soil lab in your state or purchase a cheap soil pH test kit or pH meter.