Tricks to turn hydrangea flowers the color you want

E.L. and Mary Boteler's pink hydrangeas tell me one thing for sure--their soil is alkaline (that is, the pH is above 7.0). That's because French hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) is nature's living litmus test. Blue flowers mean the soil is acid, pink flowers mean it's alkaline, and a mixture of blue and pink means the soil is near neutral.

Here are a couple of tricks to turn hydrangea flowers the color you want. To turn blue flowers pink, sprinkle 3 to 4 cups of lime around the base of the plant. Do this again several months later. To turn pink flowers blue, add 4 tablespoons of aluminum sulfate to a gallon of water, and drench around the base. Do this again three weeks later. The color change takes about a year in either case, so be patient.

What about altering a white hydrangea? Some people claim there is no way to change the color, but I disagree. Just stop watering it for a few months at the height of summer and watch what happens. Steve Bender

Read our answers to your "Garden Letters" on page 80 of the June 2001 issue of Southern Living. For a deeper look into the garden of E.L. and Mary Boteler, see "Sharing the Joy" on page 96 of the June 2001 issue.

	hydrangea nikko blue part shade to shade
	pg hydrangea sun to part shade
	variegated hydrange part shade to shade
	annabelle
oakleaf hydrangea
	fall color