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Hydrangea Blues
Published on: April 25, 2008
by Diana Greenwood Mead
Welcome to our gardening feature where Diana Greenwood Mead, our gardening expert answers your questions every week. CLICK HERE to email your question and if it is featured we will send you a SupermarketGuru tote bag to say thanks! 
This week Rosemary from Willowick, Ohio is worried she'll be singing the blues if her Hydrangea turns pink and writes to Diana:
Recently I was given a Blue Hydrangea plant as a gift. Pretty soon I will be planting it outdoors...how can I keep the blue color as opposed to the pink that it might take on? Hello Rosemary,
I hope the Hydrangea is flourishing and I'm sure it will be very happy to be planted out in the garden.
There is a huge range of Hydrangeas and if your Hydrangea is blue now it will stay blue if you give it some help along the way. Firstly it is important to know whether you have acid or alkaline garden soil.
A soil testing kit, if you can find one at your local hardware store or garden center, will only cost a few dollars and will quickly tell you, but if this is not available look around and see what is growing near you. If you have pine trees, and camellias in the spring, rhododendrons and azaleas in the summer, it means your area is acidic and your Hydrangea should stay blue.
If not, or if there are many different plantings around you and you are really not sure, don't worry - plant it anyway and just do the following:
Add some peat moss when you plant it and from time to time water it with a Sequestrene mixture (sold for watering the acid loving plants previously mentioned) or Aluminium Sulphate. Both are obtainable from a good garden center – do be sure to read the instructions on the pack. My grandfather was a keen Hydrangea grower and lived on the chalky (very alkaline) south coast of England, and from time to time he used to ceremonially bury his old razor blades and any old nails that he could find at the feet of his favorite Hydrangeas – and I have to say they stayed the most magnificent blue all summer long ... Happy Horticulture,
Diana
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