My rant and then how do you keep your blue hydrangea blue ?

Lee_Francis

I'm a bit of a lousy gardener. Do stuff in fits and starts.
(because it's so disheartening -work work work - pests diseases drought etc)
That's why I have grass and a border that contain pots and should contain plants. The soil is horrendous - clay, builders rubble, and depending on the weather - 2-6 inches of topsoil, and depending on my back, organic stuff.

Anyway - I looooooooove acid loving plants. So my next nightmare - keeping terracotta pots that don't fall apart in the winter (although frostfree HA !), keeping pests and diseases at bay - hm, not very successfully - and trying to keep 'acid' soil acid, knowing when to feed and when to water the container plants.
I've asked the pundits, looked at books, looked on the net, looked at magazines and sunday paper supplements - and really, it's just a nightmare out there as tips don't convert to healthy beautiful plants ! Sometimes it doesn't surprise me that some people concrete their bit !

Anyway - back to acid loving plants and pots. Every year when they flower, they're just ???????????? what is that ?
Last year, planted two hortensia, one blue and one pink.
They flowered
one white and one lilac pink and white lacecap. ??

So, this year:
Bought some blue hortensia - and they're in flower ! So I know they can be blue.
Got tips from a sunday supplement - put a/some old steel scourers in the pot (did that earlier this year in the camellia pots), ericaceous compost and feed, and to keep them blue, apart from the normal aluminium sulphate (1/4oz to gallon water, yeah yeah, rainwater) tips are, use spent coffee granules, eggshells, and groundup orange and grapefruit peel.

Well I've done that, put them west facing in semishade and will keep to the normal watering and feed regime - that's until they turn creamy lacecap, catch the frost and get munched by some nightmare plague etc etc.

After that moan and rant -
anyone successfully planted and grown blue mophead hydrangea in pots year after year ?
Please - tell me how you managed that ?

Aaaaaaaaa that's better
Thanks in advance

Lee

Jayar

Glad you got all that off your chest
First of all - Relax. It's only a garden. My attitude to gardening is "If it works, it works. If it doesn't, then shrug your shoulders and put it down to experience"
Terracotta pots - if frost keeps breaking your pots, either wrap them up in the winter or put them somewhere sheltered
OR - drum roll - Stop buying them
Adic loving plants - you can buy ericacious compost for them. That should give them all the acid they want. Then, every year, just skim off the top inch or so of compost and give them some fresh. Never heard of putting steel scourers in with them, that's a new one on me. I give mine coffee grounds and cuttings from conifers.
Here's another page of tips for you, if you can bear to read some more
http://www.gardeners.com/Growing-Blue-Hydrangeas/default/hydrangealp.page

Fen1

If you are really into saving money, have a look at this website (widdle has so many eco uses!) :http://rnceus.com/ua/uaph.html

Lee_Francis

Thanks Jayar - had a look at the webpage.

I always use ericaceous compost and feed - stains everything bright blue !
I also bubblewrap all the pots - whether visible plants or not, and wrap all the tender things like the hibiscus, banana, all the cordyline etc. in garden fleece. The pots 'flake' off in big chards and in a couple of winters are ruined - funnily enough the plants are either ok or semi ok. I couldn't dig out my cannas last autumn because they had grown so many bulblets frightened I'd kill them with th fork, and the ground was so rock hard that I decided to leave them to the elements and write them off. But, took the fleece off last month and they're all coming up ok ! Weird. I'm not too keen on them so will give them away when they've flowered - IF I can dig them up ??

Got any tips on how to extra frostproof pots ?

Why it all annoys me is because I try and do it by the book and it doesn't happen - so money down the drain ! If I neglected the things then I could and would blame myself.

And Fen1 - the wee thing ? Will wait til I cannot get up the stairs any more, and then frighten the neighbours ! Seriously though - have heard of using wee, but on the compost heap to keep the beasties away ! HA

Thanks

Lee

Jayar

"Got any tips on how to extra frostproof pots ?"

You could use plastic pots. Don't like the look of them? Neither do I.
However, if you plant your plant in a plastic pot, you could then put the whole thing in a more attractive terracotta one. Come the winter, whip it out again and put your terracotta pot somewhere safe for next year.

wen2202

Alan Titchmarsh said last week about putting 1 or 2 nails in the ground at the base of the hydrangea to keep it acid.

Solomon_Broad

The terracotta pots break up because they absorb and release water. There are lots of tiny little holes that let water through. In the winter, the pots soak up moisture, and when the frost comes along, it expands, and cracks the pot.

The only fully frostproof terracotta pots I've seen are the glazed ones.

To get a blue hydrangea, you need to start off with a variety that can be blue, and then give them acid soil. Burying stuff under them only works if the soil is acid. The acid makes certain minerals (or something) available to the plant, which takes them up, and then the flowers turn blue. Grow them in pots, in ericaceous compost, and feed them with Miracid. And keep your fingers crossed too. Make sure and give them plenty of water too. A dehydrated hydrangea won't do well at all. Make sure it's rainwater though, not tapwater, which will probably make the compost alkaline.

ManAtHome

Sequestered Iron always used to be the "in thing" for blue-ness (apologies if it's now non-U, poisonous, against EU health & safety etc...).

Lee_Francis

Thanks for all your input.

Planted the hydrangea and keeping my fingers crossed.
And am now trawling the net for a product that will glaze terracotta.

Couple of bits some of you may want to check out or may be interested in . . .

1. Just came back from Morrison's and they're selling hydrangea, in flower - saw creamy white lacecap and pink mophead - £2.99 ! - sounds good value to me !

2. Yesterday found http://www.garden-care.org.uk/ that may be of interest to those of you that may need a last resort nuking facility. Haven't used the site yet, but looks handy. It is either run by or belongs to the Crop Protection Association. Have no idea who or what they are - so I'm certainly not promoting them.

Anyway - thanks again

Lee

Fen1

Do you put your pots on stands? If the pot is in direct contact with earth/concrete/etc. then it increases the chances of cracking. You can buy very fancy heavy duty pot stands in matching terracotta. Or shove a couple of bricks underneath - just something to raise the pot from the ground and well ventilated to stop it from absorbing moisture.

Lee_Francis

Hi Fen1

I use a combination of things -ie depends where they are:

I use pebble tiles or this year bought some round tile things(from poundshop), plus 3 stones to keep them level if in a border.
I use terracotta feet (again from poundshop)-there every year
I use bricks
I use plastic coated round wire trolley things (poundshop)
And my fave is, have some steel/aluminium type painted garden tables where all the pots are in and out of plastic trays for watering/feeding and good drainage.

I wrap all of them in bubble and/or fleece when the weather man says 'frost'.

I don't have an exposed garden - live in Northants - not the weather exposed wilds
So as you can see - shouldn't get the frost ruining the b**gers.

Used to spend a lot on beautiful pots - but now only the on sale/end of season 99p ones, the bigger the better as long as they are supposedly frostproof.

Always wondered how they are frostproofed . ..

Thanks for your input

Lee