Garden Pic Wednesday: Fall Flowers

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Today's Garden Pics of the day are "Fall Flowers" currently in my garden beds:

First up: Purple Button Mums.
These are new, just planted about 3 weeks ago. Seems like I have to replant them every year. 
I keep hoping they'll spread and make a home here.



 

Next: This weeks Hydrangea Vase Arrangement:
Here, "pink and purple" are fall colors. My garden beds are full of  Vinca: dark, medium & light pinks! I've got purple Mexican Heathers, purple mums, burgundy Basil blooms & purple Clematis.

You wouldn't believe this arrangement is comprised of only 2 Hydrangea stems.
 It's an old shrub that has been recently putting up a single stem with multiple smaller heads on it. About 5 medium size heads.  So I just cut that apart for this vase plus one additional hydrangea head that was a single and about 5 Vinca stems. The Vinca bloom one bloom a day, but are loaded with several buds and make a nice greenery fill between blooms.
Neat thing is, if I recut the stems and change the water, the hydrangea's will last 3 weeks! The last multi-head I had in a vase did! (the petal edges start turning brown when it's done.) 

Hydrangea's are funny---their color is strongly effected by soil acidity or alkalinity. This particular shrub was blooming blue blossoms in spring, but now is leaning to lavender and pink. Maybe it needed more Epsom salts earlier this summer, but this shrub had been known to randomly bloom both blue and pink heads at the same time, but it's always been peculiar. Grew it from a cutting that came from some random hydrangea at the flower shop I used to work at some 15 years ago.

But, as a general rule, you lighten a Hydrangea's color by adding a Tablespoon of baking soda to your watering can and water weekly or, if you want more blue on a blue breed, water with 1 Tablespoon plain, unscented Epsom salts mixed in water weekly.
Or you can sprinkle a Tablespoon or 2 of plain Epsom salts directly on the ground around the base of your Hydrangeas, blueberries, lilacs or anything else that normally blooms blue or purple.
 Also tomatoes, veggies in your garden, Roses & Hosta's also like Epsom for the nitrogen, phosphorous & magnesium it provides.
It's really a cheap go-to for the garden.

Comments

John Holton said…
We had hydrangeas until we wanted to expand the deck and, well, they had to be taken out, but I remember a friend of mine said that you could change the color of them. Of course, he never told me *how*...
Oct 14, 2020, 2:01:00 PM

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