Every day is a new spring adventure! It鈥檚 wonderful to see how things change almost daily, and what amazing new signs of life are appearing in our gardens.
Some dear sweet friends gifted us with a stunning hydrangea plant just before Easter. Aren鈥檛 they amazing plants? Ours is blue, and those large balls of blooms are truly eye-catching! I thought I鈥檇 better do some homework to see how to best care for this beautiful plant, so I鈥檒l tell you what I learned.
Hydrangeas like morning sun, but prefer to take a siesta in the shade in the afternoon, so placing them in an east or south location would suit them fine. Watering them is a sensitive procedure: they like to be kept moist, but not wet. When the top of the soil feels dry, give them a drink but be sure that the water drains out; they don鈥檛 like wet feet! The plant would enjoy a treat of balanced fertilizer, 20-20-20. They enjoy cooler temperatures, so don鈥檛 keep them in a very warm room.
When the day comes that the blooms are spent, take a deep breath and prune them. This is hard to do, considering how glorious they looked, but giving them this haircut will encourage new growth. You could actually cut the plant back by about one third. So be brave and go for it!
Now put on your lab coat and let鈥檚 talk about science for a minute. Hydrangeas are blue or pink because of acidic or alkaline soil. To be blue, hydrangea plants need a pH of less than 5.5. Higher than this and they will turn to pink. Soil pH refers to if a soil is acidic or alkaline. 7 is considered the middle, neutral, and anything below seven is acidic, while anything above is alkaline. (The condition of the soil determines the health of our plants, so that is why, when a plant is ailing, we are often encouraged to get a soil test. Most plants enjoy the middle ground.) But if we want our blue hydrangeas to stay blue, we should add sulphur while the plant is in bloom. This care must be consistent and continued regularly, not just on one occasion. And if you really want to try a science experiment, you could try to change the color of your hydrangea by altering the pH levels!
We can take our plant outside when the danger of frost is past, and the same rules apply: we should keep it in a spot where it will get the morning sun, but light shade in the afternoon. Be careful about watering it, because outside, it is very easy for it to dry out on a warm day, and drying out is what hydrangeas dislike the most!
And a little factoid: the most common hydrangeas, hydrangea macrophylla, are called 鈥渕opheads鈥� because of the shape of the flower head! The next most common is called 鈥渓acecap鈥� and it has a flatter head, with tiny buds in the centre surrounded by a ring of open blooms, which are sterile but have the important job of luring in pollinators! Isn鈥檛 nature amazing?
Speaking of pollinators, log on to www.cheerios.ca and sign up for free seeds to encourage bees to visit your yard. One in three bites we eat is made possible because of the bees, so they deserve any help we can give them!
The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be on Wednesday, May 15 at 7 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. It will be the famous 鈥淚ron Gardener鈥� event!
Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca and have a great week!
