Hydrangeas

A friend is helping to plan her daughter’s wedding and they, like me, enjoy the beautiful and bountiful mophead hydrangeas. She is planning centerpieces of them for the gift table and guest registry. What could be more elegant and colorful?

As we discussed all of her ideas, the subject of colored hydrangeas came up. I have always wondered about their colors. I had read in gardening books and Southern Living Magazine, that they derived their colors from the soil. But exactly how that was possible, I didn’t know.

Then one day I saw a lady who had deep pink and purple hydrangeas growing by her front porch and pretty blue ones on the other side of the house. Can soil be that different within a thirty to forty foot range? She said they were the same when she planted them and gradually the one by the porch started blooming pink and purple.

I asked her what she thought made the difference and she said the only thing she could think of was that she always emptied her coffee off the porch near the pink and purple hydrangea. It set me to thinking.

I began tossing the used coffee grounds onto the soil around a couple of my hydrangeas. The mulch is dark, so they didn’t show up. And sure enough, the blooms got darker. The more I placed around them, the darker they got, turning almost purple just like the older lady’s had.

So now, I try to feed coffee and its grounds to a few of mine while leaving others alone to bloom in traditional French Blue.

If you have more than one, try this for yourself. It’s amazing to watch the blooms turn pink and then purple. Wow!